


Brain Trust: Close Encounters

by FantasiaWandering



Series: Brain Trust [1]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Genre: AU, Action/Adventure, Family, Friendship, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 20:36:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2886692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FantasiaWandering/pseuds/FantasiaWandering
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between the demands of helping the turtles and Splinter relocate and her reinstatement and promotion to investigative reporter at Channel 6, April has barely had time to stop for breath. But when she and Vernon report on the work of a certain Dr. Stockman, it's his grad student, Irma Langenstein, who catches the interest of the organization that's been abducting scientists across the city. Fortunately, Irma has more connections than anyone realizes, and Donnie does not take kindly to the abduction of his online gaming partner.</p><p>Now, Irma is stuck in an enforced witness protection program in the new lair, there's a vigilante running around the back streets of New York, and citizens are reporting mysterious lights in the skies above the city. Which is all in a day's work for the best reporter in NYC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for theherocomplex's 2014 Minibang with illustrations by fivefootoh. It is both the biggest challenge I've had to date, and one of the most fun stories to write. Thank you for organizing, Bee!

For as long as she could remember, April had known exactly what she wanted to do with her life. Yet, it seemed that with every turn, she was faced with something else forcing her carefully-laid plans off the rails. The fire. Her father. The years of having to take time off school to waitress in order to pay down her debt. Oh, the job at Channel 6 had been a dream come true, until April had realized that all they needed was a pretty face to jump up and down on things. And then, the biggest wrench in the works of all. The chance encounter on the rooftop that had sent her life spiralling out of control.

She never would have thought that spiral could have been the launching pad she needed to turn it all around again, yet here she was. April O’Neil: Investigative Reporter.

 _I wish this lab was a little more…. lab-y,_ she thought as she checked her hair in the reflective glass of a bookcase -- McNaughton never hesitated to bring it up if she looked anything less than professional. She turned her attention back to the rest of the room, surveying it with a critical eye. The racks of test tubes on the workbench along the wall said “science”, she supposed, and it would do as a backdrop in a pinch, but it was all very neat and orderly. The networked computer monitors in the corner were a little more promising, displaying a bewildering stream of numbers and 3D renderings of what appeared to be rotating molecules. The poster on the wall above of a grinning alien displaying the words “scientist salarian” didn’t hurt, either.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss O’Neil. The test ran long, and we couldn’t stop mid-cycle.”

April turned as the subject of her interview entered the room, and had to fight back disappointment there, too. It wasn’t that he wasn’t photogenic — he was actually very handsome, in a put-together sort of way, and there was something familiar about him that could have been endearing if he wasn’t so stiff and formal. His dark skin contrasted sharply with the flawless white of his lab coat, and the smart button-down and tailored slacks he wore beneath it could have belonged on any businessman. Even his hair had been groomed to military precision. At least now she knew who was responsible for the orderly nature of the majority of the lab, but it would have been nice to have a little more “Back to the Future” for the camera. Or at the very least, a de Grasse Tyson or a Nye. She _really_ wanted the viewers to stick with her on this one.

“That’s all right, Dr. Stockman,” she said, extending her hand. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.”

Stockman shook her hand, his grip warm and firm, which she appreciated — too many of the scientists in these interviews shook her hand like she was some kind of doll. She also appreciated that his gaze hadn’t drifted downward as so often happened with other interviewees, but his attention was on the camera over her shoulder. “Is this going to be live?”

“Nah,” Vernon replied, lowering the camera and checking his levels. “Just getting as much footage as we can. We’ll edit it together for the broadcast. Make sure you look good.”

“I appreciate that,” Stockman said, straightening his coat. “I’m afraid I don’t do well on the spot. I much prefer being in the lab than in front of people.”

“I understand,” April said, glancing to Vern. At his nod, she raised her mic. _Game time_. “Now, if you don’t mind, Dr. Stockman, your recent breakthroughs in nanotechnology have been the cover stories of both _Science_ and _Wired_ this year. Can you explain how this technology stands ready to revolutionize biomedical research?”

The nanotech was only part of the reason she’d gone after Stockman for an interview, but she took it seriously all the same -- she hadn’t nearly gotten herself killed on the Sacks story and fought her way to a re-hire with a promotion just to half-ass it. But as the interview progressed, Stockman made the work she loved almost painful. It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand what he was talking about — she hadn’t been reading up on his research in mainstream and academic journals for the past week for nothing — but there was no way that her current core viewership, who still felt the need to write long e-mails about how she should undo a few buttons on her top, would be able to folllow the complex scientific details.

Stockman was starting to feel the pressure, too. After the third time she rephrased her question, trying to get a more direct answer from him, he threw up his hands in defeat. “I really don’t know what else to say, Miss O’Neil. If it’s not perfectly clear that the genetic refraction index of the polypeptides governs the sensory apparatus of the biomechanoid interface, then I don’t know what to tell you. Please, excuse me. You can show yourselves out.”

April exchanged a panicked look with Vernon. She couldn’t let this opportunity slip away. If she blew this story, she’d be back on the street interviewing the vendors at the International Frankfurter Festival and giving out paper crowns to the owners of the “longest wieners.” McNaughton would _never_ let that go.

She darted in front of him, blocking his escape route. “I think we’ve got what we need,” she said, ignoring Vern’s raised brows on the other side of the camera. “Now, if you have any colleagues we could talk to, I’d like to get some colour commentary on how inspirational your work has been.” Unseen by Stockman, Vern flashed her a thumbs-up.

Stockman preened a little at her words, mollified for now. “Well, there is my graduate student. Perhaps you could have a word with her.” He turned to the doorway of the lab he’d refused to let the camera into for “confidentiality reasons” and raised his voice. “Langenstein, would you come here?”

“I really don’t think I should leave this unattended,” a woman’s voice called back.

With a small moue of distaste, Stockman excused himself and vanished into the workroom. Moments later, the owner of the other voice emerged, and April couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. _This_ was her viewer-friendly scientist. And if she didn’t miss her guess, she was looking at the owner of the sticker over the computers too.

The young woman was probably in her late twenties or early thirties, but where Stockman was the model of a 1950s starched-shirt NASA scientist, his graduate student looked like she’d wandered out of some kind of nerdy rave and into a lab coat. Her short hair hung in messy waves, cut close to the nape of her neck at the back but hanging past her chin at the front. It had been dyed a light purple, probably done herself, as some of the under sections hadn’t been bleached out and showed black through the colour. Her right hand was tattooed, and as the young woman glanced back at the lab, April caught sight of a Hebrew character inked at the nape of her neck.

“Hi,” April said, holding out her hand. “April O’Neil, Channel 6 News. This is my producer, Vernon Fenwick. We’d like to talk to you about the work you do with Dr. Stockman.”

“Irma Langenstein,” she said, shaking April’s hand. “He said you wanted me to make him look good?” She frowned at the camera and then glanced down at herself. “Am I going to be on TV? I didn’t exactly dress for it.”

Beneath the lab coat, she wore jeans, sneakers with colourful koi embroidered on them, and a blue shirt with a stylized “R” logo and the words “REYNHOLM INDUSTRIES” emblazoned across the front.

April smiled. “You’re perfect. So what do you do for Dr. Stockman?”

“Far too much for what he pays me,” she said, then glanced askance at the camera. “Wait, were you filming that? Please tell me you didn’t just film that.”

“You’re safe,” Vern said, his grin matching April’s. “I promise we won’t air anything that’ll get you fired.”

“Oh, good.” Irma leaned back against the desk. “I was hired a couple years ago to do the back-end coding for the nanobot programs, which is where my Ph.D. thesis is focused, but I’ve gotten roped in to anything Dr. Stockman doesn’t want to do.” She started listing off on her fingers. “Preparing electrophoresis slides, maintaining the experimental cell culture, TA-ing his classes so that his students actually stand a chance of understanding something he says—”

“Wait, that last one,” April said.

Irma grinned. “Oh, yeah. Stockman’s brilliant, but nobody without a Master’s at the bare minimum can understand a thing that comes out of his mouth—” she caught herself and glanced at the camera again.

“Safe,” Vern assured her.

“So,” April said, “you can translate Dr. Stockman’s words into plain English.”

Irma nodded. “That’s what I get paid the nonexistent bucks for.”

“So, this nanotech stuff—”

“Oh, the official explanation goes on for several pages and has a textbook worth of footnotes, but all you really need to know is this.” Beckoning, she walked them over to the glowing computer screens. “This is the good part. See this molecule here? It’s part of a compound that lets us tailor our experimental cell cultures to do exactly what we need them to do. At the same time, it acts like a homing beacon for the nanobots. So let’s say you’ve got an inoperable brain tumour, right? You bond the compound to one of the cancerous cells, and it’ll spread to the brain tumour — but _only_ the brain tumour — and it flags it for the nanobots to come and break the cells down. Bam! No more cancer.”

“Okay, see, that? _That_ sounds revolutionary.” Vern glanced over the camera. “Why couldn’t Stockman just have said that?”

“Because then he wouldn’t sound smart,” Irma replied. “I’m oversimplifying greatly, of course, but that’s the gist of it.”

“Okay,” April said, brushing her hair behind her ear. “We’ve got a great start. Now, let’s get some of the details down. Tell me about the programming work that you’re doing.”

Compared to Stockman’s half of the interview, Irma was gold. She had a habit of snarking before thinking, which meant editing was going to be tricky to cut the unusable lines out, but she was incredibly good at boiling the complicated concepts down into easy-to-understand terms. More than that, she was animated. She clearly adored the work that she was doing, and it showed. No wonder she was in demand as a TA. After half an hour with her, April was almost regretting her decision to go into journalism instead of science.

“Okay, I think we got it,” Vern said. He glanced at his watch and swore under his breath. “We’re gonna be tight for the deadline, O’Neil, I’ll meet you in the van. Nice work, Ms. Langenstein.”

Irma toyed with a lock of hair as Vernon dashed out the door to start cutting the interview together, and glanced at April. “You think so?”

“Definitely,” April said, packing her mic into its case. “How come I haven’t seen you in any of the material on Stockman before?”

“I’m a girl in computer engineering,” Irma said. “You’re in a boys-club industry, too. You tell me.”

April winced in sympathy. “Well, it’s their loss. You’re really good at this.”

Irma smiled, and some of the guarded wariness she’d worn since she stepped into the room began to slip. “Really? I’ve thought about going into science journalism after my Ph.D., since, y’know, I’m good at talking about this stuff in ways that don’t make people want to defenestrate themselves out of boredom. You think I’ve got a shot?”

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, April dug out one of her cards and handed it to Irma. “Tell you what. I’ve gotta run if we’re going to make our deadline, but send me an e-mail, and we’ll have lunch sometime and talk it over.”

When she made it back to the van, she had only four words for Vernon. “Make her look good.”

* * *

 

The cut that made it to air just under the wire was spectacular, and Irma fairly shone. They watched the broadcast from the back of the van, and when it was finished, April turned to Vern with a grin. “Maybe now they’ll start taking her seriously.”

“We did a good thing, O’Neil,” Vern agreed. He took a breath, raising a hand to scratch the back of his head with a deliberate casualness. “So, I was thinking, it’s been a long day, and there’s this great Korean place just around the corner.”

“Vern,” April sighed. “We talked about this. We tried—”

“And it didn’t work, yeah, I know. And we’re friends. At least, I think we’re friends—”

“We’re _good_ friends,” April corrected.

“Right, right,” he said. “And I’m totally cool with that. But friends, you know, friends go out to dinner from time to time, and—”

April rested her hand against his arm and he fell silent, watching her. “We’re friends. And we _will_ go out to dinner from time to time. But right now, there’s somewhere I have to be.”

“Of course there is,” he sighed, leaning his head back against the editing monitors. “So how did you end up being a single mom of teenagers at your age, anyway?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” she answered wryly. Grabbing her bags and slinging the strap of the heaviest over her shoulder, she let herself out the back of the news van. “Good night, Vern.”

“Night, April,” Vern answered with a crooked grin. “Good work today.”

“Yeah,” she said, and smiled at him. “You too.”

* * *

 

It was strange how the trip down into the sewers felt so familiar. She’d only been taking this particular route for a few weeks, but it felt like coming home. Weeks of salvage, done over countless furtive, clandestine trips, had finally come to fruition. The result was a home that, while laden with the familiar objects that carried with them the memories of fifteen years of growing and learning together, also spoke of something new. New beginnings. New family.

April shook her head with a small, self-deprecating smile. _You’ve been writing too much copy, O’Neil._

The brick she pressed her palm against looked like any other in the wall, but the telltale thrum beneath her hand told her it was the right one. A few seconds later, she heard the heavy thunks of the locking bolts releasing, and she threw herself against the door.

For the first few seconds, the door inched open as she struggled with the weight of the heavy concrete. Then, it jerked out from beneath her, and only the massive green hand that reached out to catch her kept her from toppling to the floor.

“Hey, April.”

With a grin, April reached up to pat the biceps larger than her head. “Hey, Raph. Donnie still hasn’t done anything about this stupid door, huh?”

Raphael answered her with a rare grin before he shrugged. “He said something about pulleys and pneumatic something or others, but that was about when I tuned him out.” Without offering or waiting for an answer, he plucked one of the bags from her shoulder and headed down the corridor. But since the stupid thing had been incredibly heavy, April didn’t complain. She just trotted down the hall after him to where the rest of the family waited.

“ _April!”_

She braced herself for the blow as the streak of green and orange barreled out of the kitchen and grabbed her into a hug so fierce that her feet left the ground. A soft squeak wheezed out of her as she stared into Mikey’s beaming face.

“Dollface!” he crowed. “Didja bring me something good?”

“A smack upside the head?” Raph growled from behind April. “Please say it’s a smack upside the head.”

“It’s better than a smack upside the head,” April said, “but only if you wait your turn.”

“Awww,” Mikey protested, but gentle hands intervened and pried April loose from his enthusiastic grip. April cast Leo a grateful look, and was rewarded by his knowing smile as April shifted her bag and crossed the room.

The chaise had been her gift, bought with the first paycheck she’d received after landing her new job. In this home of patchwork and worn edges, it stood out as one of the truly new things here, but it was soft, and warm, and good for aching bones that needed time and care to heal. April knelt next to the chair, smiling at its occupant. “I brought you something.”

Splinter had come closer than any of them to not making it through the night that the boys had first brought her home, and though he still helped the boys with training, he still needed a great deal of rest. The chill of their new home hadn’t helped much, but thanks to a large number of YouTube tutorials and yarn remainder sales, she and Raphael had begun crocheting an afghan. Half completed, it lay across his lap, the bright colours vivid against his dark fur. But though his healing was taking its time, Splinter’s eyes were bright as he regarded her, smiling warmly as he laid a gnarled hand against her hair.

“You have brought so much already, April. You did not need to.”

She couldn’t help leaning into the touch, just a little. There wasn’t a day that passed that she didn’t miss her father, and everything that had happened with the Shredder, with Sachs, with the turtles themselves, had opened those wounds again and laid them raw. Splinter wasn’t her father. Could never be her father. But the warmth of his touch — it took some of the sting away.

“I wanted to,” she corrected. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out the tissue-wrapped bundle within and passed it to the rat.

His hands were steady as they unfurled the bright paper, and the observation filled her with relief. Even a week ago, they hadn’t been so. A soft breath left him as he pulled the delicate little teacup out from the wrapping. “It is lovely, April.”

“I saw it in the window of this little shop when we were wrapping up our shoot, and I thought of you,” she said, sitting back on her heels. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Soooo,” came the voice at her elbow, and April smiled despite herself. “I waited my turn.” Looking over her shoulder into Mikey’s earnest face, she knew she should at least make a token attempt to be stern, but she just couldn’t do it.

“You don’t have to give him anything,” Leo pointed out.

“No.” April reached into her bag. “He _did_ wait his turn.”

Mikey was practically vibrating in place as she pulled out the six-pack, and he let out a squeak as the dim light in the lair fell on the electric green of the cans. “Dew!” He grabbed them from her, hugging them to his chest. “My girlfriend is so awesome!”

“Mikey,” April laughed. “Remember our talk.”

“And by girlfriend I mean girl who is a friend whose boundaries I respect and whose beauty I appreciate in a totally platonic way!” The words left him in a rush as he bounced to his feet, pausing only long enough to kiss the top of her head before he took off for the kitchen at a run. “I love you, April!” His words drifted back from the next room.

“Well, at least that got him out of the way.” Leo took a seat on the battered couch they’d dragged back from some scavenging run a couple weeks ago. He tossed her a pillow, and she gratefully shoved it between her butt and the cold floor. Furniture was still on the to-do list, and she’d spent most of her money on Splinter’s chair. The look Leo turned on her was amused, but there was that edge beneath it that she was coming to recognize as Leo’s business face. “”So,” he said, resting an elbow on his knee. “What did you bring for the rest of us?”

April smirked. “I take it you watched my piece?”

“We wouldn’t dream of missing it,” Splinter said, pausing in his examination of the delicate painting adorning the teacup.

“You looked good,” Raph added, without meeting her gaze. He’d come to rest on a stool across the three-legged coffee-table, the fourth corner of which was held up by a pile of cinder blocks. She’d bought the biggest crochet hook she could find, but even the 10-millimeter hook was dwarfed by Raph’s hands as he worked diligently on the next square of Splinter’s afghan.

“Thanks,” April said, wrapping her arms around her knees as she turned her attention back to Leo. “And we were right. That Stockman guy totally fits the profile. Creepy lab. Long hours. Unique research field nobody else is into.” She frowned. “He didn’t seem worried, though. Maybe it’s a dead end.” She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and looked up at Leo. “Am I just connecting the dots for the sake of a story?”

“Aww, hey, now,” Mikey said, returning to the room with a can of Mountain Dew and a contented expression. “I dunno what’s got our girl down, but whatever it is, it ain’t right.” He dropped down to sit next to her, offering her his can. A few weeks ago, she would have turned him down. Now, she just shrugged and took a sip before passing it back.

“Mikey’s right… sort of,” Leo said. “Just because Donnie can’t find a connection between the work the missing scientists are doing doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

“Yeah, dude doesn’t know everything,” Mikey said, nudging her gently, which almost bowled her over. “I mean, he knows way more than _me_. But not everything.”

April frowned, looking around the room. “Where is Donnie, anyway?”

“Date night,” Leo and Raph chorused in unison, followed by a snort of laughter from Raphael.

April stared at them. “ _Date_ night?”

“It’s date night?” Mikey exclaimed in dismay. “Why didn’t somebody tell me it was date night?”

“ _Date_ night?” April repeated with slightly more emphasis, looking from the boys to their father.

“Date night,” Splinter said wearily.

From the back of the lair drifted the aggrieved, slightly nasal tones of the missing brother. “ _It’s not a date!”_

“Aw, man!” Mikey pushed himself to his feet, passing his soda to April. “I can’t believe I’m missing date night!”

As Michelangelo sprinted to the back room where Donatello had set up his command centre, April set the abandoned soda on the tilted coffee table, catching it before it could slide off again and bracing it there with the TV remote. Once she was sure it wasn’t going to drench her with processed sugar syrum, she turned her attention back to the others. “I can’t be the only one who sees a potential problem here.”

Leo just smiled and shook his head. “Don’t worry. He’s not stupid. He goes online with this girl a couple times a month to do some game… thing. Voice only. Mikey’s decided he needs to be part of it, but Donnie makes sure he doesn’t let anything slip.”

“I don’t believe this,” April muttered under her breath, and looked over at Splinter. “And you’re okay with this?”

“Don’t look at me.” Splinter folded his hands over his teacup. “In my day, a date was a piece of cheese and giving up your turn on the running wheel.” A clawed hand stroked his whiskers. “Donatello is cautious. I trust him.” His dark eyes met hers, and there was something unspoken within them. An echo of words spoken a seeming lifetime ago drifted through the back of her mind. _I knew one day they would want to explore the world above._ _They would be ridiculed._

And she finally understood. Donatello was cautious. Doubly so, after the security breach that April herself had caused, which had nearly destroyed them all. But this one thing that Donatello had discovered — it gave him a chance at something that wouldn’t have been possible even a few years ago. It gave him a taste of normalcy.

“Go on,” Leo laughed. “I know you’re dying to check it out.”

She didn’t need any more encouragement. In seconds, she was on her feet.

* * *

 

Of all the rooms in their new home, Donnie’s command centre looked the most like it had before the attack on the old lair. It wasn’t particularly surprising — Donnie had managed to amass an astonishing collection of tech that would have been hard to replace (she figured it was probably best that she didn’t know where it had come from in the first place), and the mainframes had been enough away from the bombs to shield most of the computers from the blast. April had spent enough time with the guys in IT to know that tech types could be incredibly picky about their setup once they had it the way they liked it.

Beneath the glow of the wall of screens, Donnie held a flailing Mikey at arm’s length, his hand planted firmly over Mikey’s mouth. “I don’t know,” he said, and April ducked against the doorframe, suddenly unwilling to be seen. “Are you seeing a difference in multiplayer with the new patch?”

“Totally,” came the answer through the computer speakers. “Loadout takes half the time, and I don’t get shot by my noobs nearly as much.”

Donnie snorted, seemingly oblivious to Mikey’s increasingly desperate flailing. “I can’t believe you’re still carrying them around. You sure they’re not doing it on purpose?”

“You’ve never seen them on a mission. The safest things on the map are the things they’re trying to shoot on purpose.” That got a laugh from Donnie, the mystery voice joining in. “Come on, Donnie, someone’s gotta train ‘em. And I’m way nicer than a lot of the jerks in Victory squad.”

April’s brow furrowed as she leaned a little closer. That voice was annoyingly familiar.

“Personally,” Donnie continued, “I’m more excited for when the arsenal expansion pack finally drops on the—AAAAUGH!”He let go of Mikey as though he’d been burned, glaring at him through his thick lenses. “Did you just _lick_ me?”

“Is that Mikey?” The voice on the other end of the mic was clearly laughing.

Donnie sighed. “Unfortunately.”

“Irma!” Mikey crowed.

April hurriedly clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp. Of course she knew that voice. How in the hell was the world that small? But Mikey, now unleashed, wasn’t about to be stifled again.

“Irma Irma Irma Irma Irma!” Mikey leaned over Donnie’s shoulder and flipped a switch.

Donnie scowled at him and flipped it back. “Stop that.”

“Irma, sweetie baby dollface, tell me you got the good stuff for me,” Mikey crooned, ignoring Donnie’s attempts to push Mikey’s elbow out of his face. “Please please please please please.”

“I got you covered, buddy,” Irma said. “But if I do this thing, you give me and Donnie some alone time, right?”

“Right right right. Bring it on, girl!”

Irma’s snort was audible. “Donnie, incoming.”

“Yes!” Mikey danced expectantly from foot to foot as he stared entreatingly at Donnie. Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Donnie leaned forward and clicked on a link that had popped up on one of his monitors. In response, a video sprang to life on a smaller monitor in the corner. A large cat sat on top of a shelf, washing its paw as a small kitten frantically spun in a circle beside it, chasing its tail. A second later, the kitten toppled off the shelf, as the large cat belatedly reached out with an ineffectual paw. Mikey watched with obvious delight, bursting into a gale of laughter at the end. “Ohhh, girl, you know what I like. Not like some people.” He swatted at Donnie’s shoulder, initiating a flurry of smacking that ceased only when Irma forcefully reminded them that she could hear them. Finally, Mikey settled to watch the video on a quiet loop, snickering softly to himself as Donnie turned his attention back to his monitors.

“You still there?”

“Mmmm.” The sound of typing drifted over the speakers. “Just deleting a few e-mails from this dating site. I really need to deactivate my profile one of these days, but they make it an awful lot of work.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Donnie adjusted his glasses, frowning at the speaker.

April knew the weary fatigue in the answering sigh all too well. “I’m just tired of getting all these e-mails and going through all the work of setting up dates just to have it go nowhere. High investment, zero return.”

Donnie snorted. “Why wouldn’t it go anywhere, though? You’re smart, you’re funny, and you can clear the Antares Base in under ten minutes. What’s not to like?”

April’s lips curved into a fond smile as she leaned her head against the doorframe, even as her heart gave a small pang of regret. With all the machismo and bravado and endless pop culture references she had to navigate when talking to the turtles, it was the offhanded, unintentional kindnesses like that which had made her come to realize just how _good_ they were at heart, and it saddened her that if Donnie and Irma were to meet in reality, she’d be more likely to run away screaming than to last long enough in conversation with him to witness it.

The warmth in Irma’s voice said clearly that Donnie’s oblivious sweetness wasn’t lost on her either. “Thanks, Donnie. Really. But interested girls on this site are pretty much nonexistent, and for most of the guys, all that stuff just isn’t enough,” Though her sigh was audible through the speakers, her next words were soft enough that April almost missed them. “I guess I’m tired of opening the door on dates and feeling like the first words out of my mouth should be ‘I’m sorry I’m not pretty.’” She cleared her throat, the sound followed by several forceful keystrokes. “Enough about that. I’ve been waiting for this since I got to work this morning. Are we going to do this thing or what?”

“You betcha.” Donnie tapped a few keys. In answer, several monitors changed their displays to show an alien landscape and a stern woman in bulky, futuristic armour toting an implausibly large gun. “So how was work today?”

Irma groaned. “Long. But interesting, at least. The prof I work for was supposed to be getting interviewed by this news crew, but they ended up getting foisted off on me, so I guess I was on the—”

At Irma’s words, Donnie’s hand slipped on his mouse. In response, the space commander on his monitor let a rain of bullets fly from her gun. There was an answering scream from the game on the other end of the line, followed by Irma’s irritated, “Donnie, what the hell?”

“That was _you_?” he asked, his voice squeaking with incredulity.

“Yeah, it was me. Geez, and you think my noobs are bad when it comes to shooting me.”

“No, no, I mean — gah, sorry, hang on, I’ll use a medi-pack — I mean on the news.”

“You saw that,” Irma replied.

And _now_ April recognized the voice. Where before there had been casual familiarity and warmth in Irma’s voice that rang through even the tinniness of Donnie’s speakers, now it was the same one April had spent the night listening to. There was a distance there; she was guarded. Wary. Bracing for something. Not that it took much reasoning to figure out. Irma was a girl gamer who’d just been outed on the internet, and unlike April, she also had no idea what Donnie was going to do with that information.

But Donnie ploughed on, oblivious. “Oh, yeah! My friend—” he caught himself before he could out April, too. “Uh, likes to, erm, _watch_ the news.”

“Nice save, brah,” Mikey whispered, restarting his cat video again, ducking the empty coffee cup that Donnie lobbed at his head.

“And you were great! Those algorithms are pure genius, and the way you solved for the sequencing variables? It must have taken you weeks to come up with that. What’s it like to have that kind of technology to work with? Have you found anything statistically relevant yet? Did you…. Irma?”

Donnie fell silent, finally realizing that the girl on the other end wasn’t responding. He called out her name again, and even Mikey paused his video, listening to the odd series of thumps coming through the speaker. Donnie reached out and turned up the volume, his brow furrowing. Something shattered on the other end. Slowly, Mikey rose to his feet, drifting over to stand at Donnie’s shoulder. “Irma?” Donnie said again, his voice tense with uncertainty.

There was a sound like a distant, muffled scream, which cut off abruptly. A window popped up on Donnie’s main screen to let him know that the call had been terminated.

“Oh man,” Donnie breathed. He kicked off against his desk, rolling his chair to the keyboard he used on the primary mainframe, which handled all of the lair’s security protocols. His fingers flew across the keys with an agility April always found astonishing for their size. His eyes flicked from monitor to monitor as the screens began scrolling with the stark white-on-black of lines of code. “Please don’t think it’s creepy, please don’t think it’s creepy, please don’t think it’s creepy…”

“What?” Mikey poked at his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Isolating her ISP to get her location and hacking the nearest traffic camera. Y’know. Just to be sure.”

Mikey just stared at him. “No, dude, that is _totally_ creepy.”

April was inclined to agree. Leaving the safety of her doorway, she stepped forward, intending to put a stop to this before Donnie went too far. But even as she did so, his large central monitor switched to an infra-red image of a dark street. As they watched, horrified, several masked men dragged a kicking, struggling, figure in pyjama pants and a tank top out of the basement apartment of one of the row houses to the van that waited at the curb. Despite the fact that her wrists were behind her back and a bag over her head, their captive managed to land a solid kick to the groin of the man holding her feet. As he doubled over and dropped to the ground, another stepped forward, striking her hard across the head before jamming a sparking rod that was all too familiar into her ribs. She went limp, and her attackers took the moment to secure her ankles with zip ties before tossing her in the back of the van. Seconds later, the camera flared as the basement was engulfed in flames.

Donnie spun around, his horrified gaze meeting April’s and Mikey’s before he opened his mouth to bellow the one thing they all were thinking. “ _Leo!”_

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The tires screeched in protest as Mikey took the corner hard. Ordinarily, Donatello would have protested the abuse on the chassis, but at the moment, there were bigger things to worry about. His eyes remained glued to the holodisplay on his wrist, integrating the feeds from the helicopter overhead into his tracking system.  _There_.

"Mikey, another left!" Donnie shouted. Bracing his feet against the dash for support as Mikey obliged and took the next corner on two wheels, Donnie fumbled for the radio. "April, they're heading west!"

"You know," Vernon's annoyed voice crackled over the open channel in response. "When I got my pilot's license, I don't think this was the use they intended."

"It's a news chopper, Vern," April's voice joined his on the channel. "This is news. Now go west, we gotta keep the van in sight. It's heading for that industrial complex."

Leo reached over Donnie's shoulder from where he crouched in the back and plucked the radio from Donnie's hand. "April, you can't report on this."

"I'm not going to give any details Leo, relax. Let me do my job, and you guys do yours."

" _Right!"_  Donnie yelped.

Mikey yanked the wheel, and there was an answering thump and a string of cursing from the back as Raph slammed into the side of the van. Mikey floored the gas, and the van crashed through the electrified gate barring the access road in a shower of sparks, and Donnie winced as he calculated the damage it would have done to the fender. He had a lot of work ahead of him later. "They're right ahead of us!"

"I got this," Raph said. Over the roar of the motor, Donnie heard the whine of hydraulics, and he spun around, his eyes wide in horror.

"Raph, no! Irma's in there!"

"I know that!" Raphael snarled at him. "I ain't gonna hit the van. Just slow 'em down a little."

"No!" Donnie shrieked, but it was too late. The rocked flared, streaking through the darkness toward the fleeing van. Seconds later, the night lit up in a ball of fire. Its tires gone and a hole ripped in the side, the Foot van careened out of control before smashing sidelong into an empty warehouse.

The radio squealed as April and Vernon both shouted over each other, demanding to know what had just happened, but there wasn't time to answer. The driver's side door of the Foot vehicle swung open, falling off its hinges to land in next to the van, and disoriented but distinctly angry Foot commandos began to pour out. As bullets thudded into the front of their own ride, Donnie heard the singing of metal behind him as his brothers drew their weapons.

"Remember," Donnie said, "she's still in there."

"We got it, Donnie," Leo assured him, the passing street lights gleaming off his katana and illuminating his feral grin. "We're professionals."

"Hit it!" Mikey called, and hauled hard on the wheel.

The van spun in a complete 180. The second it stopped moving, Leo and Raph burst through the back doors, with Mikey hot on their tails. Donnie held back only long enough to fire off a targeted EMP to take out the lights before he followed, melting into the ensuing darkness as he set his visor to night vision. Gunshots peppered the air, but dazed and blinded, the Foot didn't last long. The rattle of chains followed by a series of hollow thuds to Donnie's left heralded Mikey's takedown of the one with the automatic rifle. Leo and Raph had already dealt with the driver and the two who'd been with him, as the human sized hole in the plyboard of the nearby storage shed could attest. That left only the one standing next to the hole in the side of the van and firing indiscriminately into the dark. Donnie thumbed the switch on his bo, extending it to its full length as he sprinted toward the gunman, running up the warehouse wall and throwing himself into a flip to get himself out of the way of the spray of bullets. His anxiety giving way at last to anger, he brought his bo down hard on the hand holding the gun.

How dare they. How  _dare_  they do this to her. To take her from her home, like they had some  _right_  to her….

Bone cracked beneath the force of his blow, but it wasn't enough. Eliminate the danger. Take all the unknown variables out of play. His bo caught the gunman's ankles on the backswing, and as the commando went down, the crack to the head finished the job. He looked down at the motionless thug, his visor taking note of the man's weak but steady vitals, and a part of him was almost sorry that they registered at all. Then he glanced back at the van, and his stomach dropped.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no," he breathed, racing toward the back. The twisted metal screamed in protest as Donnie yanked open the doors of the singed and battered vehicle, peering desperately within.

A still, huddled shape lay on the floor of the van, blindfolded and gagged, zip ties cutting into her wrists and ankles, . But as he stood at the door, frozen in dread, she twitched and groaned into her gag. Donnie sagged against the wreck in relief, his breath leaving him in a rush. With a trembling hand, he cued up the medical feeds on his visor.  _Pulse high and thready, BP and anxiety levels through the roof — expected — but no signs of major trauma or any tracking technology._ His clinical mind took over as he quickly scanned her, taking note of the cuts and abrasions that would require attention later —  _no significant blood loss, good._  His eyes widened a little as his once-over reached her chest. "Oh, cool, is that an N7 top?"

"Nerd later," Raph snapped, shouldering Donnie aside and reaching into the van to grab Irma. Ignoring the protests she howled into her gag, he tossed her over his shoulder, holding her firmly in place as she struggled. "Cops are coming."

Donnie could hear it now, the cry of the sirens swelling over the ambient noise of the city. Quickly, he grabbed the bags lying on the floor next to where Irma had been and keyed up the tracking systems on his wrist display, calculating the best escape route to avoid the authorities. An aggrieved grunt summoned him back to the present, and he looked up to see Irma, despite the zip ties, doing her best to kick her way out of Raph's grasp. Against his brother, it was about as effective as kicking a brick wall, but Raph's face was a mask of annoyance as he pointed at her with his free hand, his expression speaking volumes.  _Do something about this._

"Irma, it's me, it's Donnie." Hesitantly, he placed a hand on her shoulder.

She stilled beneath his touch, a noise of desperate query making its way past her gag.

"It's okay. You're safe. I promise you're safe. But we've got to get you out of here. Now." Setting his jaw, he nodded to his brother.

Raph didn't need any more encouragement. He turned and sprinted back toward their van, Donnie following hard on his heels as the headlights of the cop cars cut through the darkness at the far end of the access road. Mikey gunned the engine as soon as the back wheels rocked beneath Raph's weight, leaving Donnie to leap into the fleeing van and yank the back doors closed behind him.

He shoved his way to the front, his holo luminous in the dark as he plotted the fastest way out of the industrial complex, calling out instructions to Mikey. It was a measure of his little brother's anxiety that he complied without question or comment, and slowly, the sound of sirens faded behind them. But Donnie continued to keep his eyes fixed on the holo, providing directions that Mikey no longer needed, until Leo put a hand on Donnie's arm.

"Don," Leo said quietly. "We got this. Go take care of your friend." He glanced over Donnie's shoulder, his gaze darkening. "This isn't going to be easy for her."

"But if we can just get her to a populated area," Donnie protested. "Drop her off in front of a police station, she doesn't have to see—"

He trailed off, his shoulders sagging. Leo didn't have to say anything, though the look of sad sympathy he'd turned on Donnie spoke volumes. Donnie knew enough to do the math.

"The Foot know who she is." Leo's soft voice confirmed Donnie's unspoken conclusions. "Whatever they want her for, we know they're not going to let a little thing like a police station stop them. Until we know why they wanted her, she's not going to be safe above ground." Leo exchanged a quick look with Mikey. "And it's going to be a lot easier on everyone if we don't have to keep her blindfolded the whole time."

"Leo's right, brah," Mikey added under his breath. "Better make sure the first thing she sees isn't Raph. That'd give anyone nightmares."

" _I can hear you._ "

Switching off the holo, Donnie turned to face the inevitable. The others were right. As much as he wanted to put the moment off, he really couldn't any more. But it wasn't  _fair_. He'd  _liked_  having a friend, and though the extent of their interactions had been through the internet, that  _is_  what she was, no matter how much his brothers teased him about it. He just didn't know if the friendship he'd come to value as much as his tools or his mainframe would survive the removal of the blindfold.

Irma was huddled against the side of the van, vanishing as much as she could into the shag he'd used to line the walls, and even in the dim light, Donnie could see that she was shaking. Raph had made himself as small as he could against the opposite wall, but the look he'd turned on Donnie told him clearly that he was on his own. Taking a steadying breath, he crept over to where they waited, and softly called her name. She didn't stop shaking, but she tensed, turning her head toward him. She was listening.

"I know you're hurt, and you're scared," he said. "And I know none of this makes any sense to you. But I promise, nobody's going to hurt you any more. Just… hang on, okay." He turned, holding out a hand to Leo. Wordlessly, Leo slipped a knife free of the sheath hidden in his belt and handed it over. "Let me get you out of this."

His hand had barely brushed her bare feet before she jerked them away, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "Hey, hey, it's okay," Donnie soothed. "I'm just going to cut the tie. That's all. Okay?" This time, he waited for her nod before proceeding. He hadn't thought she could tremble any harder, but the shaking he could feel through his palm as he steadied her feet made his stomach churn. The pale line of the plastic cut cruelly through a delicate, swirling tracery of a tattoo around her ankle, and even in the middle of the chaos, he couldn't help but admire the artistry. He knew she'd been inked — they'd talked about it when he mentioned tattooing as one of his hobbies — but he hadn't imagined they'd be so extensive. Or so delicate. It seemed somewhat at odds with her customary dry sarcasm. Carefully, he angled her feet and sawed through the plastic tie until it parted with a snap.

She jerked her knees up against her chest almost immediately. He couldn't blame her for her mistrust even as it stung, and he shifted a little closer. "Can I get this thing off your mouth, now?"

Again, he waited for permission before reaching out to carefully cut through the cloth that silenced her. The ragged lavender strands of her hair brushed against the back of his hand, and it startled him a little. He hadn't expected it to be that soft. Irma coughed as he pulled the gag off, and now he could see that her teeth were chattering too.

"Donnie, please." The fear in her voice hit him like a roundhouse kick to the gut. "Please, let me go."

"Oh, we will," he said, exchanging a helpless look with Raph. "I swear we will. It's just… kinda complicated."

"No it isn't," she said, yanking on her bound wrists. "Cut me loose, stop the car, let me out. Really simple. Please." Her voice cracked, and she bit her lip. "Donnie, I'm scared."

"I know," he sighed. "I— I'm sorry."

"For what?" she said. "Why won't you untie the rest?"

Silently, he cursed the fact that he was her friend and not Leo. Leo was so much better at this kind of thing. "Because I don't want to make you any more scared than you already are."

A sharp, desperate laugh broke from her. "Not much chance of that."

"Irma." Something in his voice reached her, and she stopped trying to free her wrists. Donnie let out a frustrated breath. "We're not… I look…. I'm not…" He trailed off in a soft grunt of frustration. It had  _never_  been this hard to articulate meaning before.

She shifted, pressing further back against the wall. "Not what?"

"…human," he admitted at last.

Irma went very still; even the harsh sounds of her breathing went silent.  _Well, at least she's not hyperventilating anymore._  But somehow, that was even worse.

"That's not funny," she whispered.

"That's it," Raph's voice came from over his shoulder. "This dragging it out is killing you both." Before Donnie could stop him, Raph reached past Donnie and tugged the blindfold away from Irma's eyes.

 _They're green,_  was all Donnie had time to think, before he was met with the full force of them, helpless to do anything but watch as they widened in horror. Screaming, he might have been able to handle. Fainting, they'd already dealt with once. But she just stared, her mouth open on a silent gasp, taking in the full extent of… him.

He adjusted his glasses, and gave her a regretful shrug. "I'm sorry I'm not pretty," he murmured.

She blinked in recognition, and the tears that welled her eyes and spilled silently down her cheeks were a thousand times worse than screaming. Donnie reached for her again, and she flinched away from the knife in his hand before realizing what he wanted. She turned to make it easier, but as soon as he'd cut the ties from her wrists, she turned her face away from him and wrapped her arms around her knees, retreating into a silent ball of fear and misery in the corner.

"Irma…" He reached to touch her shoulder, but she jerked away sharply, and his hand fell, limp, to his side.

With unaccustomed tact, Raph tugged Donnie away. "Give her time, man," he said under his breath. "We got more'n enough of it coming up."

Regretfully, Donnie had to admit that Raph was right. He shifted to join his brother against the other wall as the van sped toward home. Of one thing he was certain — getting Irma back had been the easy part. Now the real fight was about to begin.

* * *

Donnie heard the whispered arguing begin from the front seats almost as soon as Mikey turned off the van.

"But I wanna—"

"No, let him deal with—"

"—I talk to her too—"

"—more than enough for her to—"

"—look at her she's—"

"—get overwhelmed and make things worse—"

"—at least if someone  _cool_  lets her—"

"… _Raph!_ "

At Leo's hissed appeal, Raphael rolled his eyes and kicked open the back door — Donnie made a mental note to yell at him again about that later, because seriously, was it  _that_  hard to use the handle? — and hauled himself out of the van. In the front, Leo continued to do everything he could to physically restrain Mikey from vaulting over the seats until Raph yanked the driver's side door open and bodily dragged Mikey out, despite his vociferous protests. Freed from Mikey's enthusiasm, Leo met Donnie's gaze with a sympathetic look. "Call if you need us," he said quietly, and followed the others.

"Oh, boy," Donnie breathed, and turned back to the grad student cowering in the corner. "Uh…it's just us now."

"Great," she said, brushing damp hair off her face. "Does that mean you're gonna take me home?"

Sighing, Donnie shifted forward and let his feet dangle out the back of the van. Without the intermittent light of passing streetlamps to illuminate the interior, it was hard to tell, but he was pretty sure she was still crying. "It's kind of complicated."

"Complicated." Her voice was flat with disbelief.

"We've encountered the people who tried to take you before. I don't know  _why_  they want you, exactly, but now that they've got their sights set on you, odds are astronomically high that they'll do it again once they know where to find you."

She uncurled a little from her huddle, her fists clenching. "So I'll hide out at the police station or something. Armed guards and the lot."

"They're pretty persistent," he said. "They once took Broad Street station hostage and wired it with a ton of C4 just to get me and my brothers to come out and fight. It worked, too."

"That is persistent," she whispered, and rubbed her face with her hands. "Oh god. This isn't happening."

"If it's any consolation, this is not how I expected the night to end either." She lowered her hands to glare at him; if he'd been human, he would have been blushing. "Okay, maybe not so much of a consolation." With a small groan, let his head fall against the side of the van. "I'm really bad at this."

There was a small moment of silence before she answered, "you could be worse."

"Look," Donnie turned to her. "The whole sage dispensation of wisdom thing is so not my strong suit, and there's more backstory than the Silmarillion to go over at this point. I promise we'll explain everything eventually, but you can't be comfortable in here, and you're bleeding into the carpet, and I'd really like to patch you up and make sure you're not hemorrhaging internally." He toyed absently with his holo, unable to watch her reaction. "…please?"

For a long, impossible moment, the only sound in the van was that of her breathing, sharp with tears. Then, there came the slightest squeak of the shocks as she shifted, rising unsteadily to her feet. Donnie turned to watch her, casting a clinical eye over the way she was favouring her right ankle. When she attempted to put weight on it and stumbled, he reached out to help, but she jerked away from his touch.

 _Fair enough._ Disappointed, but understanding why she did it, Donnie stepped out of the van and straightened to his full height.

Belatedly, her startled gasp clued him in to the fact that this was the first time she'd really had a chance to look at him. The light from the lair was weak by the time it reached where they'd parked the van, but it was enough. Pushing his glasses back up from where they'd slipped, he looked over his shoulder to where she waited with a hand over her mouth and her shoulders shaking.

…wait. Was she  _laughing?_

Something in his expression must have shown his bafflement, because she shook her head, bracing herself against the frame of the doorway for support. "I'm sorry," she squeaked around her hand. "It's just… your multiplayer profile tagline." She snickered again, her voice straining as she held back the laughter, and there was only a thread of hysteria in it as she pointed at him. "Mutant chelonian technowizard engineer."

A shy grin crossed his face. He'd never really thought about that line much — it had just been something he'd thrown into a field in his profile. The thought that anyone would ever have the opportunity to find out he'd been completely factual had never crossed his mind. His grin widening just a little, he bowed. "At your service." Then, emboldened by her laughter (and if he was being perfectly honest, taking more than a few cues from her favourite in-game romance arcs), he held out his hands.

She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes, and sighed. "This is insane," she pointed out to no one in particular, and held her hands out to meet his.

The were small, Donnie mused. Smaller than April's. She'd painted her nails blue, with silver stars and moons, though the polish was chipped now, and across the back of her right hand ran the delicate black lines of a tattoo: branches bearing a multitude of blossoms, with two birds perched on the limbs, their heads thrown back in song. He tugged, gently encouraging, and as she leaned forward, he grabbed her by the waist, lifting her easily to the ground. Her breath hissed through her teeth as her foot met the concrete; before she could take another step, his arm was around her waist, his other hand holding hers for support. What he really wanted was to pick her up and stop her from putting any more weight on the injury before he could get a decent look at it, but since it was frankly a miracle that he'd gotten her to trust him this far, he wasn't about to push it.

"Just a little farther," he said. "Twenty five steps, at our current velocity."

Or it would have been, had Mikey not chosen that moment to break free of his handlers and appear in the doorway.

"Dude, what are you doing?" Mikey cried. "You can't let her  _walk!_ "

Irma had stopped moving, and her hand clenched on his. "Is that—?" she began.

"Unfortunately," Donnie sighed.

Hurricane Mikey advanced unabated as he crossed the remaining space toward them. "For real, brah. A girl's feet are the delicate cushions on which she navigates the world—" he gestured sharply at Irma's bare feet. "She can't just walk across the  _garage_. Do you know what our tires drag in?"

"Delicate cushions?" she murmured incredulously.

"I'm sorry," Donnie whispered back. "He's been reading a lot of teen magazines. He thought it'd give him insight into how to talk to girls."

Irma winced. "Oooh. Questionable methodology. Is he at least reading the good ones?"

"Mostly they're the ones that wash down the sewer drain. I'd say that's a fairly predictable gauge of their quality."

There was no time for a response as the storm broke over them. Deftly, Mikey darted between them and swept Irma into his arms. "I got this, girl. You take a load off and we'll get you fixed right up. Get you a snack, maybe some of that nice fruity smelly stuff girls like so you can have a bath—" Since he couldn't exactly hang on or try to pull her back without hurting her, Donnie was left staring helplessly after them as Mikey carted her off to the lair. Irma's pale, startled face peered over Mikey's shoulder, one hand reaching out toward Donnie. Groaning, Donnie raced back to the van to grab the bags out of the back before slamming the door and setting off in pursuit.

By the time he caught up with them, Mikey had perched her on the edge of Donnie's desk and retrieved the first aid kit. He stood, staring at the cuts and abrasions that marked her arms with a panicked look on his face before he caught sight of Donnie. The panic eased, and Mikey wordlessly ceded the field to the brother with more expertise, turning his attention instead to things more in his comfort zone. "Daaaamn, girl, that is some  _nice_  ink."

Irma glanced down at the tattoos covering her arms. Now that they were actually in the light and he could see clearly, Donnie was inclined to agree. The dark branches and blossoms on the back of her hand went on to twine halfway up her arm. An intricate, abstract feather adorned her other forearm. Up close, the barbs and veins of the feather were made up of patterns that hid ocean waves, delicate leaves, dozens of hidden patterns amidst the splashes of colour beneath the dark lines. There was more, but she hugged her arms to her chest before he could make them out. "Thanks," she said. The uncertainty in her voice still stung, but Mikey continued unabated.

"Check mine out," he said, proudly displaying his arm. "Pretty sweet, right? Donnie did it, but I totally drew it out for him first." Neither of the brothers missed the moment her hand twitched, and Mikey's grin widened. "Go on, I know you wanna touch it. Who could resist all this rippling manly muscle, right?"

Donnie groaned as he fished the antiseptic out of the first aid kit. "Mikey, she's been through enough. Could you try not to make her barf, too?"

That won a small snicker from Irma. Encouraged, he smiled at her and held up the disinfectant-soaked cotton ball he'd grabbed with a pair of sterile tweezers. She offered her arm in silent answer, only flinching a little as he began to clean the dirt away from the scrapes. While he was occupied with that arm, she slowly raised the other. For once, Mikey actually managed to hold still — surprisingly still, for Mikey — as her fingers traced over the edges of one tattooed scale.

On the periphery of his vision, Donnie was aware of Leo's presence in the doorway, keeping his distance but keeping an eye on the stranger they'd just brought into their home. It wasn't her fault — out of everything that had happened, Irma was probably the only one who'd actually had nothing to do with any of it — but bringing her here was still a risk, and Donnie couldn't blame Leo for being wary.

Irma hadn't noticed Leo yet, still intent on Mikey's tattoo. And, more likely, the opportunity to examine a biology completely alien to her. "It's great," she said at last, and she glanced at Donnie as he began to bandage her arm. "How'd you manage to find a tattoo gun that inks through scales?"

"I had to make it," Donnie admitted. "And I broke a lot of needles testing them on old tires." He moved to her left, and there were more tattoos here. A tracery of abstract swirling lines and dots that evoked waving grasses grew up her back and trailed over her shoulder and her upper arm. As he began cleaning up the cuts on this arm, he watched her take in the tech surrounding them.

"You build a lot of stuff, huh?"

Donnie gave a self-effacing shrug as he wrapped more gauze over her cuts. "It's no Cerebro, but I get by."

"Okay, now he's being modest." Mikey broke in. "He builds some  _sick_  stuff! I gotta show you my rocket board!"

Irma blinked in astonishment. "Wait, the rocket board  _exists?_  I thought you guys were kidding."

"Naw, it's off the hook! Only I'm not allowed to use it in here anymore on account of all the stuff I sorta broke. But I'll totally show you later. Oh, and hey, hey, check this out!" Mikey dashed over to the central computer bank, tapping a few keys, and one of the monitors switched to a video of a white cat, startled by a paper bag, arching its back and waddling out of the frame on two legs. Mikey pointed at it proudly. "Eh? Eh?"

And for the first time since the whole ordeal began, they were rewarded by her true, heartfelt laugh. It was brief, and short-lived, but it was real.

"Yeah," she said. "That is a good one."

Irma may have been watching the screen, but Donnie was watching Irma, and he didn't miss the moment when her lip began to quiver. Quickly, she looked away from the screen, which meant that she was staring straight at his chest; he could see the tension run through her as she fought her instinct to recoil. Instead, she tilted her head to look up at him, and finding him watching her, she wrapped her arms around herself again and shrugged. "'S'cold in here."

"That's one of the unfortunate drawbacks of subterranean living," Donnie admitted. "And as incredibly cool as your tank top is, I can't imagine that it's helping." At that, Irma glanced down at her combination of Mass Effect tank top and flannel pyjama pants covered in what appeared to be small cartoon kittens dressed as sushi, and she covered her face with her hands to hide her groan. Donnie wasn't exactly a qualified judge when it came to matters of fashion, but he gathered that particular ensemble wasn't one she'd counted on anybody seeing. Pulling his goggles back over his eyes, he took a seat cross-legged on the ground in front of her. "I just need to take a look at your ankle, and then we can probably make you a little more comfortable."

"Hey, I may not be fixit nerd scanner guy," Mikey added, drifting back over. "But that's one thing I  _can_ fix." He untied his hoodie from around his waist and flicked it out with a flourish, offering it to her as though it was a fur coat. Irma gave it a dubious look before slipping her arms into the sleeves, and it dwarfed her like a small tent, but Mikey looked delighted. "See? Stylish  _and_  warm!"

"Thanks," she said, holding up a sleeve that reached long past where her hand actually was. "It's certainly pungent."

"I know, right?" Mikey said. "That's a  _man_  smell." He straightened with a gasp. "Oh! That reminds me. Wait right here."

'Where would I go?" she answered weakly, but Mikey was already out of the room.

"Sorry. He's like that. You get used to it." Donnie shrugged sheepishly. "We'll see if we can do some laundry tomorrow." Gingerly, he took hold of her foot and turned it until she let out a small cry. Frowning, he tugged his goggles back down over his eyes. He was pleased to note that while her anxiety levels were still understandably high, her pulse and blood pressure were back down at levels that didn't signal an imminent cardiac arrest. Her ankle, however, wasn't quite so optimal. "It's showing definite signs of inflammation and probable strain, but I think it should be okay in a couple days."

"Days," she repeated. "Great."

Donnie paused, tensor bandage in hand, before taking hold of her ankle again. She had another one of those abstract, vinelike tattoos running down this leg, around the ankle bone and across her foot. He almost regretted having to cover it with the tensor bandage. He worked in silence for a moment, acutely aware of her eyes on him, before she broke the silence.

"Donnie," she asked softly. "What— what  _are_  you?"

He sighed, securing the bandage, and rose to his feet. "A long story," he said. "I was born a red-eared slider, but I didn't stay that way for very long. There was a lab that did some experiments with a secret mutagen, etcetera etcetera, now we're ninjas."

She raised a brow. "Did you just cut-scene becoming a ninja?"

"Well, it took a long time, and I'm not so good at the story part." He lifted his goggles and readjusted his frames. "Anything else hurt?"

Hesitating for just a moment, Irma nodded before reaching down and lifting the hem of her tank top. She had another tattoo over her ribs, but halfway up, her skin was marred by the ugly marks of an electrical burn. Donnie winced in sympathy and pulled some sterile gauze from the kit. "I'm afraid there's not much I can do for that other than cover it so it stays clean."

"What is it?" she asked. "It felt like I got kicked by a horse."

"Cattle prod," Donnie answered tersely.

In the doorway, Leo shifted. He still appeared at ease, arms folded and lounging against the wall, but Donnie didn't miss the narrowing of his eyes. Mikey had appeared at Leo's shoulder just in time to overhear it, though his expression was more distressed than Leo's cold anger. "Harsh," Mikey breathed, slipping back into the room as Donnie taped the gauze down and Irma yanked her top back into place. "Those things were made for someone our size, and you're all, like, tiny and stuff."

Irma snorted. "Okay, that was almost worth it for the fact that you called me tiny."

"I'll call you lots more stuff," Mikey said. "But first!" He whipped a bundle out from behind his back and presented it to her. "To welcome you to the turtle cave!"

Irma stared at the shriveled, blackened roses he held out to her. "Are those rotten?"

"Noooo," he said slowly, taking another look at them. Defeated, he let them drop to his side. "Yeah. Kinda."

"Well, it's the thought that counts," Irma said. "I guess."

"Yeah, if the thought is pestilence," Donnie said.

Irma covered her nose with a sleeve. "I'm sorry, it was a nice gesture and all, but they kinda smell worse than this hoodie."

Mikey drooped as though she'd cut his strings, but before she had a chance to do anything more than look at him with a stricken expression, he was up and running toward the door again. "Just hang on, I got a better idea!"

"Mikey," Leo finally spoke up, stilling Mikey in his tracks. "Where did you even get those?"

"I've been saving 'em, just in case," Mikey answered.

Evidently, the waiting had been too much for Raph, who appeared in the doorway like a small, angry mountain, foiling Mikey's attempts to do whatever it was he was intending to do next. Donnie forgot sometimes how intimidating Raph could be to people who weren't used to him — and who had never seen him hunched together with April trying to decipher a particularly complicated crochet pattern — and Donnie tried to resist the thrill of pride as Irma edged closer to  _him_ , keeping her wary gaze on Raph.

"In case of what?" Raph demanded, planting a hand of Mikey's head as their younger brother attempted to wriggle under Raph's arm.

"In case we ever got a chance to use  _my_  plan."

Leo and Raph exchanged identical looks, each one daring the other to speak first. It was Leo who finally took the bait. "Plan for what?"

"Oh, here we go," Donnie muttered.

Mikey bounced on his toes. "My plan for the next time a girl stumbles on to our secret!" He gestured at Irma with the fetid bouquet, sending a waft of stench in their direction. "Remember the last time? I wanted to kill her with kindness, but no,  _you_ —" he jabbed a finger in Raph's chest "—had to go and do the Batman thing, and look how that turned out! Since I want to keep my blood  _in_  my body this time, we're using  _my_  plan. Give her some flowers—" Unable to take the activity any longer, the bouquet finally gave up and broke apart, oozing to the ground in a trickle of black sludge. Mikey stared at it, then dropped the other half and shrugged. "—earn her trust. You know.  _Not_  make her run straight to the bad guys before she finally realizes we're okay."

"I am so lost," Irma whispered.

"That's okay," Donnie whispered back. "So am I, and I was there."

"Besides, we gotta do something to make her feel at home," Mikey continued. "It's not like she's got anywhere else to go after they blew up her house."

"Mikey!" The other three shouted, but it was too late.

"…they blew up my house?"

Donnie watched the news rip through her like a magnesium fuse. He didn't need his goggles to tell him that her heart rate and blood pressure had spiked again — or maybe her pressure was dropping, because her face was turning an alarming shade of grey as her breathing hitched and tears spilled from her wide eyes.

"Oh nonononono! I didn't mean to make her cry!" Mikey leaped forward, his foot coming down in the flower sludge and sending him sprawling on the floor as Raph and Leo both started yelling at him. Above their reprimands and "what were you thinking?"s drifted Mikey's plaintive "I take it back, I take it back, how do I make her unhear it?"

Donnie turned to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Irma?" He snapped his fingers in front of her, but she was unresponsive, her eyes fixed and her pupils dilated. "I think we broke her!" he called back over his shoulder. Wringing his hands, he stared at her helplessly. He could build a rocket skateboard, a military-grade security system, and a solar-powered battle van, but he had no idea how to fix this.


	3. Chapter 3

April took the entry tunnel at a run, the fact that no one had been at the door to meet her causing dread to settle in the pit of her stomach. She and Vern had stayed aloft only long enough to make sure that the turtles got away without being spotted. They'd seen the explosion, and the guys hadn't answered the radio when they'd called. The only thing that stopped her from full-on panic mode was that it made sense; if they'd gotten Irma out okay, they'd have their hands full…

 _If_ they'd gotten her out.

As soon as they landed, Vernon had told her to go, promising to take care of the paperwork if she promised to update him on Irma. She'd seen her own worry reflected in his face, and with sick certainty, she understood the cause of it.  _We did this_. They'd known scientists were going missing, even if there hadn't been an obvious connection with Stockman's work and the others. And they'd put  _Irma_  at the forefront of the news report. What had they been thinking? At least, when she burst out of the tunnel, there was a familiar face waiting for her.

"Splinter!" April skidded to a halt as the rat raised a hand.

"Calm yourself, child," he said, and despite the pounding of her heart, she couldn't help but be soothed by the gentleness in his words. "She has no serious injury." He glanced toward Donnie's lab. "Though we thought it would be best if I remain scarce for now to avoid overwhelming her."

"That… that's probably a good idea." April leaned against the wall, struggling to catch her breath. "Let her get used to the guys before pulling another rug out from under her."

"That was the general idea," he said. "But—"

Whatever Splinter had been about to say was cut off as a chorus of shouting erupted from the room where they were keeping Irma. April cast an alarmed glance in Splinter's direction, but the rat seemed as clueless as she was. "Go," he said. "Quickly. A familiar face might help."

She needed no further prompting. Sprinting into the room, she was met with the bewildering sight of Mikey on the floor, Raph and Leo standing over him and yelling as he apologized profusely, and Donnie fluttering anxiously around a nearly catatonic Irma. But as April stepped into the room, Irma's glazed eyes fixed on her, and April could see the moment when Irma snapped back to reality. The girl's face crumpled as she reached out weakly, and April was across the room in a heartbeat, wrapping the other woman into her arms. Irma, for her part, just buried her head against April's shoulder and sobbed.

April stroked Irma's hair, rocking her gently as she tried to ignore the smell coming from Mikey's rank hoodie. Looks like it was laundry time. Again. She glared over Irma's head at the boys, who had fallen silent when April stormed into the room and now stood like a row of chagrined puppies. "Anyone want to explain?"

Four voices began babbling at once, and April held up a finger. Silence immediately descended. "One at a time."

Leo stepped forward, with a glance back at his brothers. "We… might have let it slip that the Foot blew up her house."

A choked wail escaped from Irma, causing April to hold her tighter until the tremors that wracked her body subsided a little. Only then did she look back, and immediately spotted who "we" referred to. "Oh, Mikey."

"I'm sorry," he said, and kicked an unidentifiable mass of black sludge off his foot. "I was just trying to help."

Closing her eyes briefly, April sighed. "I'm sorry too. I think this might be my fault."

That got Irma's attention. With a hiccup, Irma stopped crying long enough to raise her head, though her face was soaked with tears. "How can this possibly be your fault?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Raph said, stepping forward.

April sat back, biting her lip as she tried to figure out how exactly to break it to Irma that she'd just singlehandedly destroyed her life. "Well, we knew that these scientists were going missing — I guess we're pretty sure now that whatever's left of the Foot is behind it." She glanced at Leo, who nodded solemnly. Irma just looked confused, and April shook her head. "Long story."

"There's a lot of those," Irma muttered.

"Yeah," April said, looking around at the turtles. "I guess there are. So we arranged the interview with Stockman to see if he had anything in common with the missing scientists. Only once we got there and talked to you, I had Vern recut the interview to make you come out on top. I guess the Foot saw it and thought maybe you were in charge." She reached for Irma's hands, wrapping her own around them when Irma made no move to pull away. "I'm so, so sorry."

Irma looked down at their hands for a moment before she raised her gaze to meet April's. "I guess I can't really get mad at you for that without coming across as a total dick." She sighed. "Oh no, you tried to make me look good and advance my career. You monster." That surprised a laugh out of April, which Irma answered with a sad little smile of her own. "It's just—"

April recognized that hitch that strangled Irma's voice. Wordlessly, she opened her arms, and Irma fell gratefully back into them. But April's next words were for Irma alone as she dropped her voice to whisper. "I know how scared you are. I've been there. But you can trust them. There is nowhere in New York that's safer than here, with them. Trust me. The rest, we can figure out."

After a long, frozen moment, Irma nodded.

It wasn't much longer before Irma finally succumbed to exhaustion. Donnie carefully lifter her off of April and carried her off to another room, while April convened a quick family meeting around Splinter's chair.

"I've got to report in with some story about the crash," she said. "It'd be weird if I didn't." She rested a hand on Leo's arm to forestall his protest. "I promise you won't be anywhere near it. But it'll take me a while. I'll come straight back when I'm done, but will you guys be okay until then?"

Raph snorted, folding his arms across his chest. "I think we can handle one human girl in her pyjamas."

April glowered at him, and he took a step back, his eyes wide. "That's  _not_  what I meant," she said.

"We'll be fine," Leo assured her, and looked to his brothers. "I think we can all use the opportunity to get some rest before we have to deal with the fallout. We'll handle explanations in the morning." His look softened as he turned it on April. "And thank you. This would have been a lot harder if you hadn't gotten here when you did."

April patted his arm lightly and took her leave, sparing a moment to say her own farewells to Splinter. As she made her way down the hall, the lights falling dark behind her as they powered down, she couldn't help looking back. Irma may have forgiven her, but April couldn't help wondering what exactly she'd started with her carelessness. Or how it was ever going to turn out okay.

* * *

She dreamed of fire, and pain, and hard hands in the dark. There had been no warning before they'd broken through the door, a black tide that seized hold of her, stealing her voice, plunging her into darkness and bearing her away. They'd hurt her as they'd bound her hands. Fire ripping through her, setting every muscle to spasming until she was helpless to resist as they bound her legs. And then the chase, as she lay on the cold floor of their truck, terrified beyond reason, listening to snatches of their plans for her.

And then the explosion. The sear of heat and the sting of shrapnel as it scored her skin. Then, more hands, rough and  _massive_ , but despite their insistence, they did not hurt. More voices, these ones softer. Urgent.

Donnie.

She woke, gasping, sure she could still feel the fire on her skin. But no, that was just the cuts on her arms pulling beneath the bandages. Panic bubbled in her throat until she strained for air, desperate to figure out where she was in this strange darkness. Light filtered in from the room beyond, dim and blue but just enough to pick out her surroundings as her eyes adjusted to the dark.

She was curled in a nest of something soft, almost basket-like, drowning in blankets. She could hear sounds around her… breathing…

 _Oh. Oh god. His brothers_.

They surrounded her in the dark. Each of them in their own… whatever it was she lay in. Slowly, trying her best not to move the odd cradle in which she lay, she eased herself up just enough to peek over the edge at the dark shape lying on the ground below her. She let herself fall back and felt the sting of tears again, but this time, a memory held them at bay.

 _You can trust them_.

None of it made any sense, and it was hard to know who to believe. How did she know they hadn't staged the whole thing? She'd barely glimpsed her attackers before they'd bound the blindfold over her eyes — what if it had been them the whole time, making it seem like they were helping so that they could win her trust? Maybe April was in on the whole thing, because… because…

And there she came up short again. Because what? What possible reason could they have for kidnapping her? Pretty much the only asset she had was her programming skill, but seeing what Donnie had built out of nothing…

There it was again. It kept coming back to Donnie. The fear as she'd looked into his eyes and seen not the nebbish, gawky kid she'd imagined on the other end of the chat, but that  _thing—_ He'd let her believe so long that he was something he wasn't, and it tainted the memories of the countless conversations they'd had. She'd  _liked_  him. Trusted him with her name. Her voice. Her gender. And now…

But that wasn't fair. Was it? He'd been so gentle with her. Concerned. His face may have been alien, but the worry he'd shown as he'd patched her up certainly seemed genuine, even beneath the mask and the scales. Even Mikey, in his way, but oh, god, not the adorable, freckled little brother she'd pictured either, but a massive, hulking thing—

—who'd shown her a funny cat video to make her feel better and given her a shirt and tried to bring her flowers.

Shaking, she curled further beneath the blankets she'd been buried under, and frowned. There was something under there with her — she'd wrapped around it in her sleep. She struggled to pull whatever it was out from under the blankets, finally winning it free (along with the dubious reward of a fresh cloud of hoodie-smell), and held it up to the dim light that filtered into the room, squinting to make it out.

It was a turtle. A battered, water-stained, stuffed turtle. With a mask tied over its eyes.

Unbidden, she found her lips curving in a smile. With a resigned sigh, she tucked the stuffed turtle back beneath the blankets and nestled deeper into the nest of pillows. She still didn't know if she could trust any of this.

But she  _wanted_ to. And surely, that counted for something.

* * *

In the end, April and Vernon went with the story that they had been informed about the Foot's armoured truck by an anonymous tipster, carefully editing the footage to make it appear that the Foot had been intending to break in to the industrial complex, and avoiding any and all trace of the guys. When the police arrived, they found only the wrecked van; any of the downed Foot commandoes had either walked away or been removed by their fellow Foot, along with anything else that had been in the truck. As Vernon hit send on the final edits and began methodically deleting all footage of the turtles from the backup files, April pulled out her secondary phone. It was useless for most things, since it could only dial one of the four other phones actually connected to the network it ran on, but she only needed one of them.

"Donnie," she said as the screen flared to life, revealing Donatello's exhausted face. "How is she?"

Donnie removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes before putting them back in place. "Still sleeping. I'm pretty sure she woke up once last night, but she didn't say anything or try to go anywhere."

April winced in sympathy. "I'll be down as soon as I can."

"That'd be nice," he said, poking at his console. "Maybe you can bring some food when you come. I know she's gluten intolerant, and the only thing we have to eat is leftover pizza."

"I'll see what I can do." April inclined her head, carefully studying the green face on her screen. "Are  _you_  okay? You look as tired as I feel, and you weren't the one pulling an all-nighter."

"Sleeping on the floor wasn't exactly restful," he pointed out, and sighed. "I don't know," he admitted. "I—" he paused, glancing over his shoulder. "None of us expected that I'd be the first one to have a girl spend the night in my bed — actually, I think I may have inadvertently won some sort of betting pool — but having that girl be a kidnapped online acquaintance with a raging case of PTSD kind of puts a damper on things."

The bitterness in his voice rang raw even over the speakers. Even Vernon, who'd been politely pretending not to listen in as he deleted files, glanced up at that. "All right," she said. "What else is bugging you?"

"Nothing."

" _Donnie!"_

He let out a little squawk — he never did do well under direct confrontation — and sagged into his chair in defeat. "It's just that… I know I was only ever a voice on the other end of a network connection, but we were friends. And I  _liked_  having a friend. But the way she looked at me..."

 _Oh, baby._  April's heart ached at the despondence that crept across his face. She'd had firsthand experience in just how fast his mind worked when he got excited about something, and how he had to forcibly rein himself in when he realized he'd left his conversation partner behind. She'd heard how the two of them talked together; it must have been such a relief for him to have that outlet. Someone he could talk to about science as a peer. "Give it time, Donnie. She's just found out the guy she trusted wasn't what she thought. That may take her a while to get over."

He spun his chair, shaking his head as he did so. "I guess… But when we'd play things like Mass Effect, or Star Command, or Realm of Inquisition, she'd have her avatar flirt with monsters and aliens that look  _way_  weirder than I do, and that never fazed her. I guess I just thought that if we ever met up, her reaction wouldn't be quite so… horrified."

"Donnie," April said gently. "This is reality." That did get a snort from Vernon. Without looking away from her phone, she tugged off one of her flats and threw it at him. "And have you considered that maybe it's not the  _guy_  part of the 'guy she trusted' that's bugging her most? Maybe it's the  _trusted_."

He stopped spinning and stared into the monitor as though she'd just smacked him across the head with his own bo, and April shook her head in fond exasperation. For someone so smart, he really did have glaring blind spots sometimes. "Honestly, Donnie. Did you not watch my piece on girl gamers online? How many people did she give her real name to?"

"Uhhhh…"

"That's what I thought." She retrieved her shoe and slipped it back on her foot, stifling a yawn as she did so. Her other phone beeped and she swore softly. "Okay, I've got to get back to my apartment to interview another applicant for the room, and then there's a pretty good chance I'm going to crash for a little while before I make it down there, but I'll leave the phone on. You call me if you need me sooner."

"We will." His shy smile made an appearance, and April suddenly felt a lot less guilty about her pressing need for sleep. "Thanks, April."

"You're welcome, Donnie. Take care of her."

He just smiled, and ended the connection. Letting her head fall back against the wall of the van, April let out a long slow breath.

"Y'know," Vern said conversationally. "If you're looking for someone to live with—"

He didn't even have a chance to finish the sentence before her shoe hit him again.


	4. Chapter 4

Irma woke to find herself alone, and spared a moment to thank God for that small good fortune. Of course, there weren't any windows in wherever this was that they'd brought her, and they'd left the lights low in the room she was in, but the next room was bright enough to let her see the three other odd, nestlike beds. Each empty of its former occupant.

Letting out a long breath, she shoved back the blankets and carefully eased her feet over the edge, letting out a muffled squeak as the bed tilted and dumped her to the ground. She brushed her hair out of her face with an angry shove, glaring at the bed.  _Springs? Seriously? Who puts their bed on flipping springs?_

Cursing softly, she reached up to grab hold of the tilting bed… thing… and hauled herself to her feet.  _Crutches. Crutches would be good._  Lacking those, she braced herself and hobbled to the doorway. Clinging tightly to the wall, she cautiously peeked around the doorframe, but the room beyond appeared deserted as well. And beyond  _that…_

_A way out. Oh, thank God._

At least, she hoped it was. It was slow going across the room, both out of a need to keep quiet and not attract the attention of whoever was making a lot of clattering kitchen noises in the next room, and of necessity given that she couldn't really put weight on her ankle without a lot more pain that she cared to deal with. But through a combination of hobbling and leaning on a lot of walls, she finally made it to the long corridor bearing the EXIT sign clearly stolen from a parking lot.

 _Keep going. Don't look back. Just a few more_ —

"Good morning, Miss Langenstein."

Irma stumbled as her heart leaped into her throat, and only a quick grab at a pipe on the wall kept her from going over as she looked over her shoulder at the turtle looming in the tunnel entrance with his arms folded. His words were polite, but the tone clearly said  _busted_. She'd never talked to Donnie's other two brothers, but given that his stories generally involved either the bossy one or the one who yelled a lot, she was guessing this one was Leo. Taking a wary step back, she glanced toward the exit.

"Now, you could run," he continued in a tone of smug nonchalance. "But that means I'd have to stop you, and you're injured, so it wouldn't be much fun for either of us. So why don't you just come with me, and we'll go and see if we can find you something to eat?" He held out a hand. When she did nothing but stare at it, he took a small step forward. "You can try it," he offered, still infuriatingly casual. "But I  _will_  win."

There was something in his tone, an edge of steel beneath the velvet, that sent a shiver down her spine, and she looked up into his eyes. He meant it. He'd been nothing but cordial to her, but there was absolutely no doubt that if it came down to it, he'd take her down rather than let her walk out of here. Or hobble, as the case may be.

Shoulders sagging in defeat, she sighed and held out her hand.

At least he made a better crutch than the wall.

* * *

For a time, Donnie just stared at the dark screen as he attempted to gather his scattered thoughts. At the very least, he had a new perspective he hadn't considered before, and the bleak disappointment he'd felt last night had given way to hope. Which was an emotion April had a habit of instilling in him — it was probably why he enjoyed talking to their hogosha as much as he did. He was really glad he'd decided to make her that phone.

He frowned thoughtfully as he called up several of his tracking networks. He really ought to get to work on figuring out where the Foot had been taking Irma, and what about her work had made them target her in the first place — but the sounds from the kitchen were growing louder. With a groan, he left his monitors and set off to supervise before whatever Mikey was doing in there woke their unexpected guest.

"For the love of Hawking, Mikey, I don't think they heard you in Poughkeepsie."

"Oh, good! Donnie!" Mikey brushed his hands off on his apron, which, given how much  _stuff_  was already all over it, probably only served to make his hands dirtier. "The toaster just set the pizza on fire. Can you fix it?"

"Mikey!" Yanking the cord from the smoking toaster out of the wall, Donnie grabbed a pair of tongs and fished the offending slice out. "You can't put pizza in the toaster. Why didn't you use the microwave?"

"The microwave's for everyday, Dee. Not for this breakfast. It's  _special._ " He gestured to the cornucopia spread across the tables. Toast, only slightly scorched, warred for space with bagels, pop tarts, and a mountain of cold pizza. Mikey moved to the other side of the table, proudly surveying his work and planted his hands on his hips. "You think it's enough? I didn't know what she liked, so I made a bit of everything."

Tearing his eyes away from the sea of brown, Donnie turned his incredulous glare on his brother. "Mikey. She's gluten intolerant."

Mikey snorted. "Well,  _duh,_ Donnie. I have been talking to her like almost as long as you have. That's why I only made stuff that was good!" He snagged a slice of thick crust from the top of the pile and chewed on it thoughtfully. "What's gluten?"

A strangled noise of frustration squeaked out of him. Yanking open the door of the fridge, he scanned its sadly meager contents. "We really need to reconsider our nutritional priorities."

Sidling over to peer past Donnie's shoulder, Mikey laughed and patted Donnie's shell. "Dude, we got pickled eggs and ketchup. Thats, like, meat and fruit covered right there. Our nutrition is fine." A finger smeared with peanut butter poked him in the side. "Now hand me that Cheez Whiz. I'm gonna add it to the PB&J."

"Mikey, no!" Donnie slammed the fridge door and braced himself in front of it. "Now help me find something edible in all this mess before Irma wakes up."

"Too late."

Donnie looked up as Leo's voice drifted from the doorway, and he gave a soft cry of alarm at the sight of Irma dwarfed beneath Leo's arm. "What happened?"

"Oh, nothing serious. Ms. Langenstein just got a little lost on the way to breakfast." Leo grinned down at her. "Right?"

"Sure," she sighed with weary resignation.

"Right on!" Yanking off his apron, Mikey balled it up and tossed it into the sink.

"Oh, don't do that, you'll clog the drain again." Donnie immediately moved to pull it out. His hand stopped just shy of the sodden fabric, and he grabbed the pizza tongs, using them to fish the offending material out of the sink.

Mikey ignored the whole procedure and pulled out a stool with a flourish. Somewhere, he'd found a bright yellow ruffly cushion which sported a cat and an inordinate number of hearts. He placed it on the stool and patted it before gesturing to the table. "Check it out, girl, I got you the best seat in the house."

Donnie wasn't totally sure if Leo was helping her or herding Irma, but he managed to get her to the table in one piece. She sat gingerly, surveying the repast before looking uncertainly into Mikey's expectant, beaming face. "It certainly looks… um, glutinous."

"I know, it's great, right? We've also got ketchup and pickled eggs if you want, but the eggs are starting to smell kinda funky. Oh oh oh! And we've got Crush _or_  Mountain Dew! One sec, I'll pour you a glass of each!"

"I'm good, really," Irma protested weakly, but Mikey had already torn out of the room at a run, headed for his secret stash. Biting her lip, Irma looked apprehensively at the array of bread products in front of her before covering her eyes, reaching out, and pulling something off the top of the nearest pile just as Mikey breezed back into the room.

"Don't eat the pop tarts," Mikey hissed as he passed behind her.

Her eyes wide, Irma put the pop tart back on the pile. Donnie cleared his throat, suddenly very occupied with the apron. Leo just snickered, giving Donnie a shove before snagging a piece of toast and settling down at the table. Mikey joined them a second later, placing two fizzing glasses on the table in front of her. "I—" she began, but the look on Mikey's face stopped her. Surrendering to the inevitable, she picked up the orange glass and took a sip.

"At least there's no gluten in it," Donnie offered helpfully.

"Yay," she said flatly.

Before the interminable breakfast had a chance to get even more awkward, Raph wandered in, rubbing his eye as he surveyed the kitchen. "Hey, how come she gets all the good stuff?"

Irma started as he spoke and looked up, her mouth dropping open and her head continuing to tilt as she took in his full height and let out a burst of laughter. "Oh. You are just ridiculously big." Shoving her glass in his direction, she folded her arms on the table and dropped her head down onto them.

"Well," Mikey said, looking from one to the other as Raph shrugged and picked up the glass of Crush. "This is nice, isn't it?"

"About to get nicer," Raph said. His grin did not bode well for any of them. "Sensei wants to talk to her."

Donnie glanced at Leo. "I'm really not sure that's a good idea. The shock alone—"

"Wait," Irma's muffled voice came from between her arms, and she raised her head. "We're not talking about your dad, are we? The one with the shedding problem that keeps getting hair in all your drive towers?" Donnie watched her face grow pale as she considered that. "Oh God. He's not, like, a vole or a sloth or something, is he?"

"Not… exactly." Leo hedged.

Irma dropped her head back down on her arms. "And to think, yesterday the worst I had to worry about was my student loans."

"Hey, look on the bright side," Mikey said, patting her hair. "No more school!"

At that, her head snapped up, her eyes wide with horror. Raising a trembling hand to her mouth, she looked over at Donnie. "No more school," she repeated. "They blew up my house. All my files… all my externals… eight years of work…" her breath hitched. "My  _thesis_." The last emerged as a strangled, breathless squeak.

"Oh, good one," Raph snapped, planting a hand on Mikey's face and showing him away from her.

"But—" Mikey protested.

"Seriously, Mikey, think," Leo said, shoving Mikey in the other direction.

"Dude, watch the face," Mikey squeaked. "I need to be the pretty one!"

Ordinarily, it would have been Donnie's turn, but he was otherwise occupied. Unwilling to place any further stress on her already taxed system, he sidled over to her and shyly offered the bags he'd brought with him. "I think you might want to look in these," he said.

Recognition and hope spread across her face as she dragged them onto the table in front of her. "This is my backpack!" Ripping open the other bags revealed a laptop covered in N7 and Portal stickers. Pressing her hands to her mouth, she turned shining eyes to him. "How?" she breathed.

"I grabbed them from the truck when we saved you," he said proudly. "It seemed feasible that the Foot's motivation in—"

But his words stalled in his throat as Irma leaped from the stool and threw her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her quickly — it wouldn't do to have her putting any undue weight on the ankle — and was immediately struck by how much squishier it was than hugging April. Not in an unpleasant way, though. The differences were rather fascinating.

"You saved my files," she murmured against his shoulder. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

"Hey!" Mikey's aggrieved voice interrupted Donnie's contemplation of the relative squish index of the two women in his life. "Why does Donnie get all the love?"

Raph snorted. "I dunno. I guess the way to a nerd's heart is through her computer."

* * *

Profanity wove a complex, ornamental net throughout the air as April wiped her hand on her pants and tried the scanning brick again. Her breathing was just about back under control following her sprint down the tunnel, but the scanner was clearly not fond of her sweaty palms. She was on the verge of dropping her bags and digging out her phone when the locks finally cycled. The second the door slid open, a green arm shot out and dragged her inside.

"Come on, come on," Mikey urged at a whisper. "Splinter's telling her the story!" He deftly snagged a few of her bags in one hand and tugged her along behind him.

"Easy," April countered. "How'd she take meeting him? Is she okay?"

"Uh, I'm not sure. She made a noise like this." He let out a high-pitch gurgling sound, and glanced at April. "Is that okay?"

"But no screaming or fainting?"

"Nope."

April shrugged. "Well, it's not a disaster, anyway."

"Oh, good!" He paused and shushed her softly before tiptoeing into the room beyond.

Nostalgia wrapped April like a patched afghan as she walked into the frozen tableau. It hadn't been all that long since she had sat in Irma's position, completely unaware at the time that it had been a sort of homecoming. A cycle of her life coming full circle, delivering back to her the family she had thought lost forever to smoke and ash, and then some. They could never replace her father, but since the turtles and Splinter had drawn her into their lives, opening their hearts and their home, such as it was, the empty ache she had grown to live with had gone. They were loud, and messy, and often overbearing, but they were  _hers._

Now, like it or not, Irma was part of it too. Absently, she wondered if she was supposed to be jealous, but all she could feel was a nervous anxiety. A burning urge for Irma to  _understand._  To value the guys as much as April herself did. They deserved that much, and quite frankly, so did Irma.

Giving Leo a grateful smile as she shifted to make room for her on the threadbare couch, she squeezed in next to him, trying not to disturb Splinter's story. He'd reached the part just before the fire, and she quickly diverted her attention elsewhere. It was important, to be sure, but she didn't need to hear that part again. She'd relived it often enough in dreams over the years. Raph was back on his favourite stool, and Donnie perched on the back of the loveseat behind them, occasionally checking Irma through his goggles. The others were patient, at least, but Donnie's face was a mirror of April's feelings. Not even his oversized glasses could hide his anxiety.

Mikey dropped down at her feet and held up a bucket of popcorn. April snorted in fond exasperation, but took a handful as Splinter reached the part that had changed everything.

Irma drew Mikey's hoodie more closely around herself as her brow furrowed. "What's a hogosha?"

"A very powerful creature of myth. A great, guardian spirit," Splinter replied. Then, with a chuckle he gestured toward the couch. "Or as we like to call her, April."

"Or as I like to call her, my girlfriend," Mikey added, followed by a token protest as Leo and April smacked him in unison. "Ow! Geez, I totally mean a _girl_  who's a  _friend._ Gah, you guys are so  _serious._ "

Irma, however, was more preoccupied with that particular bombshell as she turned to stare at April. "So  _that's_  how you know these guys?"

"Not quite," April admitted. "I couldn't exactly follow them into the sewer, so we lost each other until a few weeks ago."

"Okay, " Irma sighed. "I'm lost again. And I still don't get how space ooze made you ninjas."

"Oooh, ooh, tell her the one about Yoshi, Sensei!" Mikey interrupted.

"We will explain all," Splinter soothed, adding, with just a hint of mischief, " _if_  you can both be patient." Irma drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped the hoodie around them, resting her chin on them as she waited for Splinter to continue his story. After a moment of additional fidgeting, Mikey followed her lead. With a nod of approval, he stroked his whiskers and pondered a moment before resuming the tale.

"We wandered the sewers until we found safe haven. It was then that the mutagen in our blood began to change us. Bone twisted, blood changed, and our intelligence grew at an astonishing rate. I knew in time that a family had been born out of that fire, and it was my duty to lead that family. With the love April's father had shown her as my guide, I raised the turtles as my sons. Like all children, they were drawn to the distractions of popular culture, and I knew, one day, they would want to explore that world above. They would be ridiculed. They would need to learn to protect themselves, both mentally and physically."

April drew her feet up beneath her, curling against Leo's side as Splinter fell into the familiar cadences of the story she knew. Leo turned to smile at her, shifting to make her a little more comfortable, and she leaned against his solid strength.  _Mission accomplished, Sensei._

"Fortunately," Splinter continued, "I was not born in that laboratory as the turtles were. For many years, I lived in Japan with my former owner, a master of ninjutsu named Hamato Yoshi."

 _Wait…_ April straightened. _What?_

Undeterred by April's surprise, Splinter continued his story. "Mimicking his movements from my cage, I mastered the ancient forms, and was happy in my quiet life. But it was not to last, for the love of a woman came between my master and Oroku Saki, the man who had once been like a brother to him. Tang Shen loved only my master Yoshi, and poisoned by hate, Saki rallied his clan of Foot, and struck out against my master. Only Shen's cunning and grace saved my master's life, but in the chaos, Shen lost her own. Bereft, my master fled with me to America."

April nudged Leo urgently. "I don't remember any of this."

"Yeah," Leo whispered back. "It changes every time."

"We think he's trolling us," Donnie said, checking Irma with his goggles again.

"Either that or he's told it so many times, he just doesn't remember the original," Leo added.

Donnie nodded. "Personally, I'm working on a theory that mutagen influences cognition in neural pathways that have already been established. Though at the moment, the data is unreliable due to the fact that my sample size of one-"

"Who cares? It's boring if it's always the same," Raph said under his breath. "I like the one where he  _was_  Hamato Yoshi, and the mutagen turned him into a rat."

"Yeah, that one's totally rad," Mikey agreed. "I like the one where we were all humans in feudal Japan best, though."

She was certain now that Splinter was deliberately ignoring them, as his tale continued apace. Saki tracked Yoshi to America and convinced Sacks to provide cover and a place to marshal the Foot. Saki, now lost to the guise of the Shredder, found Yoshi, and In the ensuing fight, Splinter's cage was knocked to the ground.

"I leaped to the Shredder's face, biting and clawing, but he cast me down, and I was lost to darkness. When I woke, the Shredder was gone, and I was alone. I wandered the streets for a time until I was caught by men with nets and cages, who sold me to the laboratory. I was to be the control subject in what they called 'Project Renaissance.'"

"Project—" Irma looked sharply at the turtles. "Oh my god, you guys are all named after artists, aren't you?"

"Yup," Leo said with a grin.

She snorted. "And I thought 'Irma' was bad."

From there, Splinter told the story of April's reunion with the family just as she remembered it, without embellishment or further interruption. Irma listened intently; the expression on her face reminded April strongly of Donnie when he was processing something important. Only when Splinter finished did she lean back and let out a long, slow breath. "You're not making any of this up, are you?"

Splinter chuckled softly. "No."

"Well, maybe some of it," Mikey said, bringing a hail of shushing from his brothers.

Irma ran a hand through her hair, her fingers knotting in the tangled purple mess. "So basically, you're telling me that I'm being held prisoner by five out-of-control science experiments and the girl who owned them as pets?"

A ripple ran through the four turtles, and Raphael surged to his feet, the storm gathering on his face. "Now wait just a—"

Splinter raised a hand, and Raph froze in his tracks. No matter how many times she saw it, it always left April more than a little awestruck that Splinter was able to command the power to stop any of the boys, even Raphael, with the smallest of gestures. Raph, for his part, was clearly unhappy about it, but he stayed where he was, arms folded, glowering at Irma. Splinter just smiled, his nose twitching in amusement.

"I believe there has been some misunderstanding, Ms. Langenstein," Splinter said. "You are not our prisoner."

Irma blinked at him, looking over at the equally bewildered brothers. "I'm not?"

"Not at all," Splinter said. "You are free to go at any time. We cannot let you see the way back to the surface, of course, but whenever you wish, one of my sons can take you there."

April jumped in her seat as her phone buzzed sharply, and she silently cursed herself for failing to turn it off when she'd come down. But as she glanced at the text from Vern, a chill ran through her, and she was suddenly very glad she had brought it with her. "Guys?" she said.

Irma, in the meantime, had jumped to her feet, staggering a little as her weight came down on the ankle that didn't want to hold her. "Now? What about now?"

"Aww, you can't leave," Mikey protested. "You just got here. We haven't even gotten a chance to play Mario Kart yet!"

"Guys?" April said again, more insistently.

"We can play online," Irma said. "I'm out of here."

"Only," Splinter said, and something in his tone brought a hush to everyone assembled. Once he was certain he had their attention, he stroked his whiskers as he gave Irma a pointed look. "Where will you go? Your home is gone, and the Foot will not give up easily. Are you certain you can move in secret without attracting their attention?"

"Oh." Irma had gone even paler, and the hands that gripped the hoodie wrapped around her shook. "I—"

 _"_ _Guys!"_  April shouted, finally gaining their attention. She held up her phone as she grabbed the TV remote from the low table and switched it on. "They found one of the missing scientists."

Under other circumstances, she might have been irritated that McNaughton was reporting on one of  _her_  stories. But that wasn't important right now. He stood on the edges of an industrial park, though not the one the boys had grabbed Irma from the night before. Bright police tape crisscrossed the fence behind him, and the camera zoomed in to pick up the uniformed officers swarming the scene.

"—plant workers discovered the remains early this morning. Police say that the degree of disarticulation means it may be some time before they are able to make a positive identification and inform next-of-kin. The cell phone image of the dismembered foot found by one of the employees that was leaked to the internet an hour ago does appear to show that the victim was wearing the same type of customized running shoe that hydraulic engineer Michael Choi was wearing at the time of his disappearance—"

The TV abruptly went dark as Donnie reached over April's shoulder and jabbed the power button. April turned to protest, but Donnie wasn't looking at her. He was staring at Irma, whose face had gone alarmingly pale as her knees began to buckle. Raph was closest, and his hand lashed out like a lightning strike, catching hold of her elbow and lowering her to his stool.

"Hey." Raph's gruff voice was about as gentle as it got. There was a keen understanding in the way he looked at the shaking young woman on the stool before him. "That ain't gonna be you."

Leo rose slowly to his feet, his earlier amusement gone from his face. "Not on our watch."

"April," Splinter broke in. "Why don't you take Ms. Langenstein to the kitchen and make her some tea? I would like to have a word with my sons."

April nodded and picked up her bags, slinging them over her shoulder before approaching Irma. "Come on," she said, putting her arm around Irma's waist and helping her to her feet. "Let's see if you can eat any of the supplies I brought this time."

As she led Irma unprotesting from the room, April spared a glance over her shoulder at the family she had come to call her own. Mikey's usually sunny disposition had clouded over with worry, while Raph and Leo unconsciously mirrored each other, both of them radiating fury. Raph's had turned outward as usual, manifesting in clenched fists and an uneasy pacing, while Leo's focused inward in the cold, blank stillness he always had just before a fight. Donnie… Donnie was furious. It was the sharp breathing and the look of absolute rage on the face of the brother who was usually the most clinical, the most distracted, that chilled her the most.

It made sense, in a way. They fought for the city nearly every night, watching from the shadows. They'd tangled with the fractured remnants of the Foot many times since Sacks tower fell. Yet this level of outrage, of affronted honour, she'd only seen when the Shredder had brought the fight into their home. And she understood. Irma may have been a stranger, but she had been a friend to Donnie and Mikey for some time. They had taken her into their home and given her shelter. They had fed her and clothed her. Then they had seen what her fate might have been had they failed in their rescue. The Foot had just made this very personal.

For a moment, April almost pitied them.


	5. Chapter 5

Donnie watched them go, his readouts confirming his fears about Irma.  _Pulse high, blood pressure low. Anxiety: off the charts. Of course it is. She's terrified_. Why hadn't he thought to warn her properly? He knew the Foot were ruthless. He'd stood there and watched as they'd callously murdered one of their own, letting his flesh consume itself as he screamed in agony, just to prove a point. They had no honour. No compassion. But this was Irma, who'd wept over the mic when she'd been forced to choose between saving the village children or the baby dragons in  _Age of Sorcery_ , and he'd wanted to keep her free of that ugliness. Only now, it had found her.

"They can't be allowed to get away with this," Leo said flatly, moving to stand before their father.

"No, they cannot," Splinter said. "We have proof now that the Foot are indeed connected to one or all of these abductions. But we must be cautious, my sons."

"Cautious?" Mikey vaulted the couch and dropped down cross-legged in front of Splinter. "We took 'em down once, why don't we just track 'em down and show 'em what happens when you mess with the good guys, yo?" He held up his fist, looking between his brothers. "Come on, who's got a bump?  _Someone_  must have a bump."

"Michelangelo."

Mikey ducked his head, his attention refocused on their father. They all knew that tone. Donnie moved forward to stand next to Leo, unnerved by the worry in his father's eyes. Splinter's health had worried them all in the days following the confrontation at Sacks tower, and it had done them all good to see his spirits return. But now, even though the barometric pressure remained constant according to his readouts, it was like a cloud had descended upon the lair. Splinter sighed, beckoning them closer. "In the days following the Shredder's defeat, the Foot were directionless. But now, they act with drive. With purpose."

"You think they've found a leader again," Leo said. Splinter nodded slowly.

"No," Raph stepped forward, his fists clenched. "No, that's impossible." "We  _saw_  the Shredder fall. Even with armour, nobody coulda survived that!"

"Uh,  _we_  totally did," Mikey put in.

"Technically, we survived due to the freak deceleration and shock absorptive properties of a latticed reinforced steel framework," Donnie interjected. "It's highly unlikely that particular combination of variables occurred in the Shredder's armour as well."

Raph turned to glare over his shoulder. "Donnie, do you  _have_ to do that thing?"

He adjusted his glasses, glancing quizzically at his brother. "What thing?"

"That will do," Splinter said. Obediently, the brothers refocused their attention once more as Splinter looked toward the kitchen. "Whatever else has occurred, the Foot are mobilizing, and the threat of them is still very real. We must discover who their new leader is, and put an end to this tyranny, before any more innocents suffer for it."

"Right." Leo stepped forward and turned to stand next to Splinter's chair. "Donnie, get your eyes on the surveillance uplinks for signs of the Foot, and see if you can get anything from the corrections database on what Sacks has been up to."

"But that guy's in the big house," Raph said. "What could he do?"

"Nobody calls it 'the big house' brah," Mikey groaned. "Get with this century."

Leo ignored their youngest brother, shaking his head. "He may be in jail, but money talks, and I don't trust that he won't have found a way to use it, even from prison. We'll patrol tonight, but keep our ears open. See what the word is on the street about the Foot. Maybe something will lead us back to where they're operating from."

"We can cover more ground if we split up," Raph protested. "I'm gonna go—"

"Not this time, Raph." Leo interrupted.

Raph turned slowly. "What did you say?"

Mikey immediately scooted out from between the two, hightailing it to where Donnie sat and exchanging a knowing look. Just once, it would be nice to make it a week without another fight between those two. They closed in, Raph's tense anger breaking against Leo's ice. "You heard me," Leo said quietly. "I've humoured you when you've gone out on your little excursions, but tonight, we need to stick together. I'm not letting the Foot get their hands on anyone else. Especially not a member of this family."

It helped a little, but not enough. Raph no longer looked ready to take a swing at Leo, but it definitely wasn't the end of it. "You think I can't take care of myself."

"It's not about that, and you know it," Leo said. "We have strength in numbers, and I want  _all_ of that strength when we move against the Foot."

"But I just—"

"Enough!" Splinter's sharp voice cut in. "Listen to your brother, Raphael."

"You  _always_  take his side!" Raph stormed off toward the tunnel to the sewers, but a sharp command from Splinter halted him in his tracks.

"My sons, you fought divided once, and it almost cost us everything that I hold dear." Splinter drew himself up to his full height, rising from his chair. Leo flinched, and it was obvious how much he wanted to go to their father's aid, but he stayed where he was. All of them did, as Splinter surveyed his assembled family. "You fight  _together."_

 _"_ It won't happen again, Sensei," Leo vowed.

Raph just muttered something, and Donnie exchanged another look with Mikey. If he'd been a betting turtle — which he wasn't, since his brothers had made him stop once they'd realized his ability to calculate probability and outcome led to him taking the pot almost every time — he'd put a month's supply of resistors on the line to bet they hadn't heard the last of this one.

* * *

Steam billowed from the singing kettle, hanging like a soft cloud cover in the cool air of the underground kitchen. Wrapping the handle in a ragged towel, April carefully lifted it from the stove and glanced over at Irma. "Did you find anything you can drink?"

Looking up from her scrutiny of the ingredient labels on the array of boxes of tea before her, Irma held out a box of English Breakfast. "This one should be fine. Thanks."

April took the tea from her and set two cups to steeping. "Do you take anything in it?"

"If there  _was_  milk in the fridge, would you trust it?"

April thought about that. "Good point. Black it is." She carried the tea over and handed a mug to Irma, taking a seat next to her as Irma wrapped her shaking hands around the warm ceramic. Gently, she reached out and rested a hand against Irma's arm. "I'm sorry. I know that had to be a shock."

Irma shook her head, her mouth twisted into a humourless grin. "It's not that. It's just— It hadn't really hit me. Like, I knew those guys who grabbed me didn't exactly care too much if I was in one piece or not, but with everything that's happened, and finding out about Donnie, and my house, and…" she trailed off and took a sip of her tea. "I guess I never really stopped to think about what they'd have once they got what they wanted out of me." She shook her head, giving a raw laugh. "Giant ninja turtles, though…kinda distracts you a bit."

"Believe me, I know what you're going through," April said. "But I meant it when I said you're safe here. They may talk big," she glanced at the fridge, "and have really questionable taste sometimes, but they only want to help."

Irma glanced down, one of her hands leaving the mug to trace over the neat bandage on her wrist. "Yeah. I'm getting that."

April smiled. "Give them a chance, Irma. They might surprise you."

"Already have," Irma said. Her answering grin was a lot more genuine this time.

Sighing, April set down her tea and looked over the collection of groceries she'd dumped on the counter. "I'm so sorry about these," she said. "I had no idea gluten was so—so—"

"Omnipresent?" Irma offered. "Yeah, you'd be surprised. But these are okay." She reached over and picked up a bag of baby carrots. "Everybody loves carrots. Mmmm, beta-carotene."

"You can't live on just carrots," April shot back. "I promise I'll do better next time. And here—" She dug into another bag and pulled out a woolly poncho emblazoned with an extremely happy alpaca. "It's not much to look at, and it itches like crazy, but it'll keep you warm until we can wash that hoodie."

"Oh thank God." Irma quickly shrugged out of the garment and tossed it in April's direction. "I mean, I appreciate it and all, but—"

"I know," April said. " _Believe_ me." She stuffed the hoodie in the bag as Irma shrugged into the alpaca shawl. "I'm sorry I don't have anything else that would fit you."

Irma snorted, her head popping free of the poncho, and she scratched around the neckline. "Don't worry about it. There's no way anything of yours would fit me. I could probably fit my arms into your pant legs, but that's not exactly useful."

"We'll come up with something." April nudged her with a shoulder.

Irma nudged her back, but as she took stock of the supplies April had brought — toothbrush, contact lens solution, various and sundry feminine products — her face fell again, and April had a fair guess as to why. All of it spoke to the fact that Irma was in this for the long haul, with no idea when she could return to the surface, and she didn't even have a home waiting for her. Taking her seat next to Irma again, April put an arm around her, ignoring the prickle of the itchy poncho. With a sigh, Irma rested her head against April's shoulder.

"I'm in serious trouble, aren't I?" Irma whispered.

"A bit," April agreed, and tightened her hold. "But hey, I fell off the top of a skyscraper and these guys got me out of it okay. If there's one thing they do well, it's trouble."

"I'm getting that." Irma tilted her head to look up at April. "Did they really stop the truck I was in with a rocket launcher?"

"Uh-huh." April laughed. "They once blew up Vern's car with that rocket launcher."

Irma's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Well, it  _was_  an accident."

"An accident named Mikey?"

April grinned. "You're catching on."

"Right." Sighing, Irma looked down at her mug. "I just wish I knew why those guys wanted me. Or Stockman. Or whatever. Our work had absolutely nothing to do with hydraulics. And — what did those other scientists do?"

"Let's see… there was an astronomer, the hydraulics guy, a nuclear physicist, and a neurosurgeon."

"There, see." Irma pulled away from April and threw up her hands. "Our work has  _nothing_  to do with any of that. The closest you get is the neurosurgeon, maybe, but that's really stretching it."

April frowned, taking another sip of tea as she thought. "Maybe I could go back to your house. See if I can find anything the police missed."

"You'd do that?" Irma asked.

April nodded. "Sure. It's kinda my fault you're in this mess, but I'd do it anyway. They wanted your computer, right? So you go through your files and see if you can find whatever they might have been after, I'll go scope out the scene in case they left anything, and we'll figure out-"

Anything more she might have said was lost as Irma launched herself at April and caught her into a fierce hug. As soon as she had ensured that they weren't both about to topple off the stool, April wrapped her arms around Irma and squeezed back. The helplessness was the worst, she knew that much from experience. The least she could do was make sure that Irma didn't have to go through this alone. And truth be told, it felt really good to have another girl to talk to who knew about the turtles. Who felt like she could actually be a friend. A friend April didn't have to hide the most important part of her life from.

Now  _that_  was something she really wanted.

* * *

The vibrant hues of the police tape stood in stark contrast to the charred walls behind it. Moving past the signs on the lawn that loudly declared the building condemned in bright reds and helpfully graphic illustrations of hapless stick men, April carefully approached, leery of making a sound. Not that there were many people around to notice her. The houses on either side had been evacuated due to fire damage, and according to the police reports, the family that had lived above Irma and rented their basement to her were staying with relatives. Thank god for the small mercy that they'd been out at the movies at the time. Irma had enough to deal with without the lives of her landlords adding to her burdens.

Pulling out her phone, she snapped a few photos for Donnie to analyze later. Maybe he could spot something she missed. That accomplished, she slipped past the tape and through the gaping hole where Irma's door had once been.

The moment she was inside, she tugged the scarf around her neck up over her nose — _nice flirty yet functional fashion choice, April._ The burned-out apartment reeked of ash, and smoke, and the mold that had begun to grow on the damp walls, too cold to properly dry. Shivering, she pulled her jacket closed and began picking her way over to the jagged shards of wood that had likely been Irma's desk. If the Foot had stopped to take her computer and her file storage, maybe they'd missed something here. She thumbed her phone and opened the flashlight app, shining the beam slowly around the dripping debris.

A sharp crack sounded behind her and she spun, gasping. "Easy, April," she told herself. "Just the house settling. The condemned, exploded house." Okay, so maybe she wouldn't be going into detail about this with the guys. Or Splinter. Or Vernon. Or anyone, really. She'd just show the pictures to Irma instead. She turned back, intent on returning to the desk, and froze. Shifting again, very slowly, she heard it a second time: a metallic scratch instead of the crunch of ash and cinder underfoot. Catching her breath, she shifted her shoe and bent slowly. The light from her phone flashed off the gleam of metal beneath the soot.

She frowned, scuffing more of the black away and snapping another photo. It looked like a metal plate. Nothing computer related, but it seemed odd in the middle of the hollowed-out room. Something that fell off a firefighter's gear, maybe? She took another picture, trying to get the marks on the metal into focus.

Another crack.

Very slowly, April turned to face the dark corner the noise had come from. "Hello?" she whispered.

In answer, a dark shape detached itself from the corner and crept toward the circle of April's light. A low growl reverberated through April's feet as the dog glared at her, its matted fur bristling.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," April breathed.

With a snarl, the dog lunged. April bolted for the door, hearing claws skidding on the wet floor behind her, and a thunk as the dog crashed into what was left of the desk. She tore up the steps, her heart slamming against her ribs as she heard the furious barking behind her growing louder as the dog regained its footing. She didn't dare look back, didn't dare give up the lead she had — but she couldn't help it. Just a quick glance over her shoulder, to see where the mongrel was.

She slammed into something, hard, and staggered, but rough hands on her shoulders kept her from falling. She glanced up frantically at the shadowed features of the man in front of her. "Are you crazy?" she gasped. "The dog—"

Shoving April aside, the stranger stepped in front of her as the dog charged toward him. "Hey! Fido!  _Shut up!_ " The bellow, thick with an accent that marked him as a Brooklyn native, brought the dog to a bewildered halt. For good measure, the stranger took a step forward and raised his fists, barking loudly at the confused dog. The mutt cringed, giving one last wistful look at April, and slunk off as though embarrassed to be seen in the company of this lunatic.

_That makes two of us._

She moved to make her own retreat when the man turned back, and this time the light from the streetlamp caught his face. Everything, from the long, dark hair, to the laughter in his blue eyes, to the absolutely shit-eating grin on his face, caught her off guard. Not exactly what she'd been expecting from a nutjob who barked at dogs. He snickered at her expression and gestured over his shoulder. "You just gotta show 'em who's the biggest, meanest dog on the block."

"Thanks," April said.

"You're welcome," he said. The affable, boy-next-door grin remained firmly in place as he took a step toward her and gestured toward the house. "Maybe you can thank me by telling me what brings you out to a condemned building at the crack o' nightfall."

April blinked, forcing a hasty reassessment. This guy might be playing the big dumb oaf, but unless her instincts were totally wrong, there was something sharper underneath. Something that knew exactly what she'd been doing before the stupid dog had derailed her plans.

In this case, couldn't go wrong with the truth.

"April O'Neil, channel six news," she said, holding out her hand. "I've been investigating the disappearances of several scientists around the city, and I think this might be connected, so I came to see if I can get any leads. Did you witness anything that might help, Mr…"

For a moment, he looked at her hand as though he'd never seen one. Then, his grin returning, he took it and shook, and April only winced a little at the strength of his grip. "Jones. But call me Casey." He let go of her and crossed his arms. "Damn, if the cops were half as nice as you, people in this neighbourhood might actually want to talk to them." His smile slipping a little, he glanced toward the house. "Disappearances, huh? So you think she's still alive?"

The worry was writ large on his face, and April softened her tone a little. "The police didn't find a body," she said. "At least, that's what the reports said."

"No kiddin'."

She tilted her head, regarding him thoughtfully. Irma hadn't mentioned anything about a boyfriend, and she was older than this guy, but if she  _had_  been seeing him, April wouldn't have blamed her. He was awfully cute. Immediately, she retracted the thought.  _Stay professional, O'Neil._  "How exactly do you know Ms. Langenstein?"

"This 'hood, we all know each other," he said, shrugging. He walked over to a large duffel dumped on the lawn and slung it over his shoulder. "I helped her carry heavy stuff and she helped me get my grades high enough I didn't lose my scholarship. Sometimes we played XBox."

"Scholarship?" April asked, and immediately regretted her astonished tone. She shouldn't make assumptions. She supposed that academics could be big and buff, too.

But he just grinned at her. "Hockey. We kept goin' after I graduated, only with more Call of Duty and less book stuff." Taking another step toward her, he gestured toward the brighter lights at the end of the street. "So detective, how about this trade: you show me some ID, we go for coffee, and I tell you everything I know about Irma Langenstein."

Returning his grin, April dug her press pass out of her jacket and flashed it at him. "You got a deal."

* * *

Casey's gut hadn't hurt this bad since Tony Rosetti had sucker punched him during the big semi-final game in senior year. But given that the cause of this ache was a good couple of hours spent laughing with what was probably the coolest chick he'd met since his team had been invited to that Hayley Wickenheiser thing just after the Olympics, he figured he could live with a little pain.

"And then," April gasped, nearly knocking over her empty coffee cup with her enthusiastic gesturing. "When they're in the boat, and Jerry pulls off his wig and goes " _I'm a man!_ "" her enthusiastic shout earned more than a couple looks from people at the neighbouring tables, but even if she'd actually been talking about herself, folks round here were pretty used to it. "And Osgood just keeps driving and goes—"

"Nobody's perfect!" Casey chimed in along with her. "Oh, man, I know, right? Just, like, the  _best_  ending line in a movie ever!"

"I've never met anyone who's actually seen it before." She wiped her eyes with her scarf, shaking her head. "Which ought to be a crime."

"You kidding? When we were kids, ma locked down any channel she didn't consider educational. My sister and I watched the classic movie channel  _all_  the time."

"Oh, gosh." April sighed, leaning her head on her hand. "It's been years since I've seen that movie. I should fix that."

Casey raised a brow as he drained the last of his cup. "You could fix it with me. Say, next Friday? My place?"

April countered with a brown raise of her own. "You mean like a date?"

"Depends," Casey answered.

"On what?"

"On whether or not you say yes." April snorted and pushed her chair away from the table. Immediately, Casey held up his hands and backpedaled as fast as he could. "Whoa, whoa, I'm sorry, I'll take it back."

"No, it's not that," April said as she shrugged into her jacket. "I need to get going. I've got another roommate interview in half an hour." She tugged her hair out from beneath her collar, and smiled at him. "But I'll think about it."

"I can live with thinking about it." Casey rose to his feet and grabbed his duffel, gesturing for her to precede him to the door. "You got my Skype, right?"

She waved her phone at him. "Right."

As they left the sugar-scented warmth of the coffee shop, the brisk night air hit them both like a slap in the face. Winter was definitely hanging on this year, as much as the early leaves on the trees seemed to wish otherwise. Casey's expression darkened a little as he watched April shiver and draw her jacket closer. "Hey, you should have a scarf or something."

The corner of her mouth quirked, which did funny things to him inside. "I have a scarf."

"Yeah, but that's one of those pretty little fashiony things. I mean a proper scarf, like you used to get from Grandma when she'd send you out to hockey practice."

"My grandma never sent me to hockey practice," she retorted, shaking her head with a smile. "I'm a big girl, Casey, I can take care of myself. But I do have a friend I might be able to hit up for a bigger scarf."

"Oh. Right. I mean good. You do that." He shifted, glancing down the street. "Can I walk you home?"

"Taking the subway." Still grinning, she began to back away down the street. "G'night, Casey."

"Right." He could feel the doofy grin on his face, but he was finding it hard to care. "Call me, babe!" he called after her.

"I'll think about it," she called back. "And don't call me babe!"

With that, she ducked down the steps to the subway, and was gone. Letting out a long breath, Casey settled his bag more firmly and turned toward the park, trying not to show the bounce in his step. The night was definitely looking up. Here he'd been all mad that somebody was poking around Langenstein's apartment, and instead, he'd gotten to have coffee with the hottest reporter in New York. Who just happened to be awesome. Sprinting the last few feet, he planted a hand on the brick wall that ringed the park and vaulted over.

On the other side, the usual shadows shrouded the park. In this neighbourhood, the city didn't put out the funds for extra lighting or anything useful like that. Dropping his bag, he leaned against a tree and rested his head against the bark, listening to the usual nighttime sounds. Traffic moving past on the other side of the wall. The scratches in the underbrush of a squirrel or a mouse searching through the piles of dead leaves for dinner. There, across the park, the sound of someone screaming.

Unzipping the duffel, he yanked the golf bag inside free and slipped it over his shoulder, settling the tools of his trade with small bounce. Once more, his hand dipped into the bag, and the white mask he pulled out caught the wan light of the moon. His mouth curling into a very different sort of grin than the one he'd graced April with only a short time ago, he reached up and tugged the mask into place.

"Time to punch in."

His sneakers made little sound as he raced along the park trail. From the little he could make out from the garbled cries, it was the usual story. Someone hadn't been able to pay whatever the Purple Dragons were demanding. Could have been anything, really. Protection money. Loans. Drugs. They had a hand in everything these days. And when their victims couldn't pay up, usually as a result of some creative interference on the Dragons' part, they got hurt. Maybe worse. Usually worse.

Well, not tonight.

He briefly considered the nine-iron and the bat, but neither one were really suited for tonight's game. No, this called for an old, familiar friend. Grinning behind the mask, he pulled his stick free, twirling it once as he rounded the corner and caught sight of the two punks beating on the weedy kid at their feet.

The battle cry had been a silly thing he and his best friend Nick had come up with as boys, wielded against the kids on the other team. But he always seemed to fall back on it in situations like this. As the closest thug raised his arm, the small amount of light from the distant streetlamp caught both the purple dragon tattoo twined around his pale arm, and the gleam of the knife in his hand, and the cry tore from Casey's throat as it did every night.

" _Goongala!_ "

This guy was better than the punks who usually hung around the park, Casey gave him that. He actually got out of the way, dodging Casey's first strike and swinging his knife hand to counter. Before it could do any damage, it thunked against the stick Casey had brought up to guard. "Oooh, not fast enough, buddy. You tired? Why don't you take a load off?" The reverse strike from his stick knocked the Dragon off balance just long enough for Casey to get the blade of the stick around and hook his feet out from under him. "I hear naps are good. Why don't you check out for a while?" The jab to the Dragon's gut cut short his attempt to get back to his feet, and the blow to the head ensured he'd stay down for a long time. "Now, where's the other—"

He turned just in time to see the second guy raise a gun. He didn't have time to do much, though. In another instant, the gun-wielder crumpled to the ground next to his already-unconscious partner and victim. Casey took a step back, bringing the stick up to bear. And a hulking horror out of a nightmare stepped into the light.

Casey's shoulders dropped. "Dude!" He hauled off and punched the gargantuan turtle in the arm. "—ow. I  _totally_ had that guy!" He shook out his stinging knuckles and blew on them. "You always take the beefy ones, man. When do I get to have any fun?"

The turtle snorted, punching him back and sending him reeling. "What, like when you almost creamed that guy two weeks ago?"

"Hey, I admitted I crossed a line, okay? And if I could go back, I'd much rather our introduction didn't involve you trying to kill me. But I was totally going to stop hitting that guy before I did any permanent damage, honest."

"Uh-huh." The turtle sheathed the weird fork-things he always carried — Casey resolved to remember to Google them this time _—_ and folded his arms. "Yeah. I totally believe you."

"I was having a bad day. Won't happen again." Casey returned his stick to his bag and knelt next to the PD he'd taken down, yanking off the goon's bandana and using it to tie his wrists. "How come you're late?"

"Family stuff again," the turtle replied, producing a length of rope and briskly hog-tying his own creep. "Took a while to sneak off."

"Man," Casey said, tying his Dragon's shoelaces tightly together. "For a giant mutant freak, you sure have a lot of domestic problems."

"And for a jacked-up human goon, you sure need me to bail you out a lot."

"Hey! I ain't jacked-up. This is aaaaall one hundred percent natural Casey Jones." He thumped his chest for emphasis. "And I told you, I had that guy. I just let you help so you had something to do other than stand around and look pretty." Casey carefully hoisted the Dragons' insensate victim over his shoulder and carried him to the entrance to the park. Settling the guy carefully on the sidewalk, he hid in the shadow of the wall and waited until he heard the shouts of a concerned citizen calling 911 before making his way back to the Dragons. By that time, the turtle had dragged the Dragons to a nice, obvious location beneath a lamppost, leaving them gift-wrapped for the cops. "Come on. We oughta be on the other side of the park when the fuzz finds these guys."

The turtle melted into the shadows with far more stealth than something that large had any right to lay claim to. "Did you seriously just call them 'the fuzz'?"

"What?" Casey followed with slightly less sneak in his step. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothin', I just didn't realize we were in a black and white gangster flick. Now come on, maybe we can catch some hooligans down at the ol' speakeasy." The gleam of his teeth flashed in the dark as he headed into the trees.

Casey rolled his eyes and followed. "Man, you are such an ass."

"Yeah, well, takes one to know one."

"Never claimed I wasn't."

They splashed through the trickle of icy stormwater that wound through the trees, heading toward the opposite end of the park. They could usually count on a moron or two over there who hadn't gotten the word yet that there was trouble in the dark now for anyone who thought they could shakedown a hapless tourist and get away with it. Things were changing for this neighbourhood, and Casey didn't intend to stop. For the first time since the accident that had earned him a permanent seat on the benches, it felt like there was actually a point to getting up in the morning again. He could look in the mirror and actually feel proud of what he saw. So he certainly wasn't giving it up without a fight.

"So what was it this time?" Casey prompted at last. Partly just to figure out where the big guy was. The quiet gave him the heebie-jeebies after a while.

"Same old," came the voice from the dark. "Mr. Fantastic being all sure he knows best. Makin' us all stick together when he knows we can cover more ground if we split up."

"Y'know," Casey said thoughtfully, twirling his bat as they moved through the trees. "You complain about this big brother of yours a lot, 'specially how he does stuff different from how you'd do it, but you've never actually said he was wrong. Think there's anything to that?"

The turtle just glared at him. "Shut up, man."

"What are you looking for, anyway?" Casey asked

The growl that came in response would have scared the shit out of him if he hadn't been on relatively good terms with the guy. As it was, Casey only  _sort of_  wanted to run screaming for the hills and not look back as the turtle spat out a terse answer to his question. "The Foot."

"Wait, those commando guys who were tearing up the city a while back?" Casey shook his head. "Man, even I'm not crazy enough to mess with that."

"You won't have to." The turtle loped ahead, silhouetted against a distant street light. "We just gotta find 'em. Me and my brothers can take it from there. One of these low-lifes has to know  _something_."

Casey had been in enough brawls to know when a guy was blowing smoke, and when he was genuinely bone-breakingly mad. Whatever the Foot had done to this guy, it was bad. It may only have been a few weeks, but in the nights they'd been fighting together since that first one, when the turtle had stopped Casey from caving in the head of a guy who'd just tried to set fire to a bodega that couldn't afford protection money, he'd seen enough to know that as weird as he was, the turtle was a good guy. If it meant that much to him to find the Foot, there was a reason.

"I can keep my ear to the ground," Casey said. When the turtle paused to look back at him, he shrugged. "I can go places you can't, right?"

"Yeah, I guess. That's…" The turtle scratched beneath his bandana, and Casey had to fight back the urge to laugh. He hadn't ever made the guy feel awkward before. It was an interesting change. "That's uh… thanks, man."

Casey snorted. "If you really wanted to thank me, you could tell me what I can call you. What with us gettin' all fuzzy like this, 'hey turtle guy' seems kinda cold. 'Sides, I told you mine."

"Wait, Casey Jones is your actual name? I thought it was that guy with the squid face who lived at the bottom of the ocean."

"No, that's  _Davy_  Jones. Dingus. You watch way too many bad movies." He stuck the bat in his back and held out his hand. " _Casey_  Jones. Way cooler and much prettier than the squid guy."

The turtle shifted in place, looking down at the hand Casey offered. Slowly, he reached out, and those massive fingers curled around it. Casey had no doubt that the turtle could probably crush the bones of his hand without even trying, but this wasn't the first time the turtle had touched him. Pretty much every other touch had been some variation on a punch — some genuine, like the first time they met, but most just horseplay — and he figured if he could survive those, he could survive a handshake just fine. A grin spread across the turtle's face as he carefully shook Casey's hand.

"Raphael," he said slowly. "Call me Raph."

"Raph it is," Casey answered. "Now, whaddya say we go have a little chat with that dude over there." He gestured to a dark shape huddled in the lee of the wall some yards off. "Something tells me those five wallets he's going through ain't all his."

Raph gave a small huff of laughter and drew his fork things. "Something tells me you're right. Let's go say hi."

About half an hour, a whole lot of screaming, and one unconscious mugger later, Casey sat beneath a tree rifling through stolen wallets. "Okay, I think we can reunite all of these back with their owners. I'll try to track 'em down tomorrow." He glanced over at the motionless mugger and sighed. "I'm pretty sure he wasn't lying about having no clue about the Foot. Nobody that scared is  _that_  good at keeping stuff in."

Raph let out a grunt of frustration, swinging his fist at a nearby tree. The hapless sapling splintered beneath the blow, sending its leafy branches crashing to the ground. Casey raised a brow. "That tree look at you funny or something?"

"I just hate this," Raph said. "This is  _our_  city and the Foot act like they own it. Like they can just take anyone they want, blow up their home, and just when you think they finally got what was comin' to 'em, they do it all again!"

One of the wallets slipped from Casey's hand as a wave of cold washed through him. Slowly, he levered himself to his feet, staring at the turtle. There was no way… he'd been so sure he could trust the guy. Could he really have been that wrong? "What did you say?" he breathed.

Raph looked up at him, his brow furrowed. "Huh?"

"Do you—" he stepped forward, pulling a stick from his back. "Do you know something about what happened to Langenstein?" Casey watched as Raphael shuttered, his stance shifting instantly to defensive. Sick dread twisted through his gut.  _Oh shit. He does._  "What do you know? Was it those guys who came after her? Shit, did they kill her?"

"She's fine—" Raph began, clamming up fast. But not fast enough.

"She's  _fine_? You know how many people are looking for her?" He probably shouldn't be yelling so loud, but discretion was the last thing on his mind at the moment. "Where the hell is she, man?" Casey took another step.

"Forget it," Raph said. "Just—"

Shaking, Casey shook his head sharply. "Yeah, like that's gonna happen. You tell me what you know about her or I swear—"

That last step was a mistake. He could see the moment he pushed it too far; something locked in Raph's face, and Casey had only a moment to wish he could have taken that last step back before a wall of green descended on him. The world flipped, and spun, and when it righted again, Casey was on his back and Raph was gone. Cursing, he shoved himself back to his feet, supposing he should be grateful that Raph hadn't broken anything on his way past.

The mood was gone. Taking down creeps wasn't nearly as rewarding on his own. Gathering the rescued wallets, he made his way back to where he'd left his duffel, stowing his gear and the wallets inside before slinging it onto his back. Feeling decidedly sick, he leaned against the wall and rested his head against the cold concrete. He'd just blown it. He hadn't meant to, but the thought of those creeps on his turf, in his own backyard… He had a sister to watch out for. Friends in the neighbourhood. It wasn't just that he'd liked Langenstein — by showing just how unsafe the neighbourhood was, they'd threatened a lot of people he cared about when they took her. The people who'd done that to her, to her house, had made it personal.

And now, getting her back was going to be  _just_  as personal.

* * *

The only sound in the tunnels other than the drip of moisture and the scurrying of the rats on the tracks was his own breathing, which suited Raph just fine. He'd been enjoying himself after he'd slipped the leash, until Casey turned on him. That little development had curdled his mood like the milk Mikey'd found in the fridge two months ago, and all he wanted to do right now was avoid talking to anyone until he'd had time to deal with his anger. He approached the entrance to the lair with as much stealth as he could. Maybe if he was lucky, everyone was already asleep.

"Enjoy your little field trip?"

The familiar smugness as Leo's voice drifted from the shadows near the entryway set Raph's teeth on edge. Figured. He just couldn't catch a break tonight. His hands twitched, and he fought to keep them away from the sai in his belt as his brother stepped into the dim light from the maintenance lamp.

"Oh. Good. You're home." Raph moved toward the door. Leo shifted to block it, of course, Raph hadn't really expected it to work. He shrugged. "I, uh, got lost."

"Oh, can it, Raph. We both know you took off." Leo took a step forward and instinctively, Raph moved to counter, his shoulders hunching as he braced for a fight.

"Whatever," Raph muttered. "So what'd Splinter say when you went running to him? How long've I got in the hashi?" He turned his back on his brother, starting to pace. No doubt Leo would be there the whole time, lording it over him. Unless the others got sentenced to it, too. That made him hesitate, a thread of guilt worming its way through him, until he firmly stomped it down. If Leo'd just listened in the first place, splitting up would have been part of the stupid plan, and then no one would have ended up in the—

"I didn't tell him."

Raph froze. Very slowly, he turned back to face Leo. "What?"

"You heard me."

There was no way. No way it was that easy. He knew Leo better than he knew anyone else on the face of the stinking planet, and Leo was royally pissed right now. No way he'd just let Raph off. He wanted to walk away, but part of him just had to know. "Why?"

Leo's eyes narrowed. "Because we've got an injured girl sleeping on our couch and the Foot rebounding faster than anyone expected them to, and Dad's already struggling with that. You can see it, if you'd bother paying attention. He does  _not_ need anything else to worry about right now."

Raph bristled at the crack about attention, but worry was right there crowding the anger out. Was it really that bad? Had he  _missed_  it? Raph's jaw clenched. "So of course Fearless Leader has to step up and be Sensei now, too."

"I'm not trying to be Sensei!" Leo's voice rang with exasperation. "I'm just trying to be a good leader! And I can't do that if you keep ignoring all of my decisions and going off to do your own thing!"

"I don't ignore all of 'em," Raph countered, shoving Leo's shoulder. "Just the stupid ones! We'd cover more ground if we split up. Did you even do  _anything_  tonight, or did you just hang around waiting for the Foot to show?"

Leo shoved him back, hard. "Would you  _listen_  to yourself? We need to stick together, Raph. We spent most of the night looking for  _you_."

"Well I didn't ask you too!" Raph swung out at Leo.

This time, Leo moved, blocking the punch and countering with one of his own. "Do you even remember what happened the  _last_  time we didn't stick together against the Foot?"

Leo didn't even have to hit him. Raph reeled just the same, his eyes going wide as memory reared up to slap him in the face.  _The Foot falling like dominoes as he tore his way through them, breaking through to the room that smelled of bleach, and chemicals, and blood. Freezing as he came face-to-face with Leo. Leo, who always had a plan, who always was so sure of himself, hanging helpless in a glass cage. Being helpless himself as he watched his brother slowly fading in front of him as the life literally drained from his body…_

With a muted roar, Raph's fist swung. But this time, it wasn't Leo he was aiming for. Concrete crunched beneath his fist, leaving a trail of dust behind as he rounded on his brother again. "Of  _course_  I remember. Why do you think I wanna find these guys? I don't ever wanna go through that again!"

"Which is  _why_  we have to stick together!" Leo broke off and stepped back, closing his eyes and taking a breath. When he opened them again, his anger was still there, but Raph could see he'd done that thing where he shoved it deep. Like that icy current that ran at the bottom of a deep sewer channel. The water looked calm on the surface, but step into it, and it would drag you down and rip you apart before you even knew what happened. "I made a bad call," Leo said quietly.

That… was not what Raph had expected. "Did you just admit you were  _wrong_  about something?"

"Back at the old lair, when the Foot attacked… I split us up. I sent you to the fan room. And we almost lost everything." Leo's gaze hardened, and some of the ice crept back into his voice. "I am  _not_  letting that happen again."

Shit. Had he been hanging on to that this whole time? Raph knew Leo was stubborn, and arrogant, and never failed to point out when someone screwed up. He'd just never figured that Leo would turn that on himself, too. "Bro… you got us out. You figured out how to take the Shredder down."

Leo snorted. "Technically, that was Mikey."

"Careful, man, now you're starting to sound like Donnie." The quip managed to pull the ghost of a laugh out of Leo. Raph sighed and slumped against the wall. Dammit. He couldn't even be ticked any more. Scratching his head, he looked up at the ceiling. "Leo… you gotta let that go. If I'd been with you, I dunno if I'd have been able to do anything either. Not if Shredder had Master Splinter like you all said. Maybe if I'd've been there, they'd just've taken me down, too." He glanced over at Leo. "Not sayin' I'd've stayed in that cage or anything. But can you imagine April and Vernon trying to get us out on their own?"

Finally, Leo let out a genuine laugh. "Well, it would have made the end entertaining, anyway."

"Hey, don't write off April." Raph grinned. "She's scrappy."

"I wasn't talking about April," Leo countered with an answering smile. But the smile faded quickly. Leo looked down at his arm, which still bore the scars from the needles Sacks' vultures had dug into his skin. "Second guessing isn't going to help us win this thing, is it?"

"You tell me," Raph said, punching Leo's shoulder. "You're the leader."

"Nnngh." Leo scrubbed his face with his hands. "Okay. No more second guessing." He poked Raph's arm. "And no more running off against orders."

"Can't promise that," Raph said, raising a hand to forestall another lecture. "I can promise I'll try though."

Leo grimaced. "I guess that's the best I'm gonna get from you, huh?"

"Hey, lookit that," Raph said. "It's almost like you know me or somethin.'"

Leo shook his head and slapped Raph's carapace with the back of his hand. "Come on. Splinter and Irma should be asleep by now. Let's get some sleep and we'll figure things out in the morning."

"I may be sleeping in," Raph said, moving in the direction of Leo's shove and placing his hand on the security panel. "I did a lot of running around tonight. You know, while I was lost."

"Riiiight," Leo said. "Last one up cleans the dojo."

"Buttface."

"Hothead."

Raph fell silent as the door closed behind them, not wanting to wake the others. As they moved together through the darkened lair, Raph tried very hard not to think about how much he was actually enjoying the company. Leo was a royal dick sometimes. Most of the time, really. But damn, did he ever hate being reminded how lost he'd be if anything ever happened to Leo.


	6. Chapter 6

Donnie found Irma in his lab.

He stood in the doorway, watching as she sat cross-legged on the floor, her laptop in her lap, punching the keys with a force that indicated she was clearly furious. He wondered if she'd slept okay. Or at all, really. They'd arrived home to find that Splinter had made her a bed in his precious chair, at least until they could find something better. Donnie wasn't exactly sure what the big deal was about Irma continuing to sleep in his bed while he took the floor, but Splinter muttered something like "I'll tell you when you're older," in the tone that Donnie knew was not one to question. Splinter, at least, was small enough to sleep on their tiny couch, but Donnie didn't like the potentially detrimental effect the shot springs would have on his father's healing physiology, and he resolved to fix up the room they'd designated as Splinter's as soon as he had the chance. Tonight, at least, he could set up the old futon they'd found for him. At least he'd have a little privacy in the increasingly-full house.

In the meantime, Splinter was still asleep, and though Donnie had little doubt that his father would have been up and across the room in a heartbeat had Irma attempted to sneak out of the lair, she'd managed to slip into Donnie's lab in the early hours of the morning without disturbing anyone. He'd liked the fact that, unlike the in old lair, the layout of the abandoned subway station afforded his command console a little bit of privacy rather than exposing it to everyone in the other room. But it might do to set Irma up a place to sleep in here. He knew that if he'd been forced to live with near-complete strangers, being surrounded by computers would definitely have made  _him_  more comfortable. Maybe he could fix the springs on the old cot that had been in the station's first-aid room. It wouldn't be luxury, but it would be better than sleeping in the chair, and it would be  _hers._

He cleared his throat, and Irma jumped with a screech, barely managing to catch her computer before it slid off her lap. "Jeez, Donnie, don't DO that." She straightened her glasses and looked up at him, running a hand through her tousled hair. "I'll give you this — your wifi security is damn hard to crack."

"It has to be," Donnie said, dropping into his chair. "There've been… issues in the past. But here." He held out his hands. "As long as you promise not to blog about where you are, I can give you access."

"Who'd believe me if I did?" she quipped. He just raised a brow at her and she sighed, rolling her eyes. "Okay, okay. I promise."

Satisfied with that, Donnie called up her network connections and linked her into the system. "There you go. You're all set." Passing the computer back, he swiveled his chair back and forth as he watched her type. "How are you feeling?"

She shrugged, eliciting a small wince at the motion. "Sore as hell. Starving. But I'm still in one piece, so I guess that's something." She glanced down at her ankle with a sour look. "Your dad and I had a talk while you guys were out yesterday. He said that once I'm a bit steadier on my feet, he had exercises I could do to help. I'm not sure which makes me more nervous — the fact that we're talking about me being here that long, or the fact that the look on your face says I should be very afraid of these exercises."

"Oh, no," Donnie hedged quickly. "You'll be fine. Sensei is tough, but he does actually know what he's doing."

Irma made a face, tapping at the keys some more. "Did you guys find anything while you were out?"

"Not yet," he said. "We'll keep looking, though. There were… complications with Raph." He cleared his throat, suddenly very desperate to shift the conversation to another topic. "What about you?"

"Nothing in any of my files that links back to any of the other guys' research. Though now that I have internet access, I can hit up JSTOR and some of the other databases to get a look at their research papers. Still have a lot to go through, though. I might not see the pattern until I stumble over it. I wonder if—"

Irma broke off with a gasp, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. Instantly, Donnie was out of his chair, kneeling before her as her face went white. "What is it? What's wrong? Did you find the connection?"

"No," she whispered, dropping her hand as her eyes remained fixed on the screen. "I checked my Facebook." Finally, she looked up at him. "Donnie, my dad thinks I'm dead. I have to tell him."

"You can't!" Donnie glanced around the room in a panic, desperately wishing for someone like Splinter or April to come in. "You always said you didn't get along with your dad, anyway."

"I don't," she snapped, "but I can't just let him think I'm dead! Donnie, he called my mom in from Vancouver. Do you know how catastrophic that is? They can't stand to be in the same country with one another, and she's coming in. I have to stop this before it goes any further." She closed the laptop and set it aside, grabbing his hand in hers. He let out a small squeak as he stared down at the small fingers wrapped around his. "Donnie," she begged. " _Please_."

She looked so lost, sitting there on his floor in April's awful alpaca poncho. He knew that letting her contact the outside was a bad idea, but in a way, they were responsible for this. Him and his family. They'd been the ones who had asked April to investigate the missing scientists, thinking that they could continue to do good for the city following their battle with Sacks and the Shredder. Donnie himself had been the one who had first discovered the pattern of the missing scientists and presented it to April. In a way, it was his doing that Irma was here now, holding his hand while her family mourned her.

He thought of how he'd felt when they'd watched the Shredder plunge his bladed gauntlets into their father. How he'd felt when the Foot had herded them into the vans and he'd realized there were only three of them.

He bowed his head with a sigh. "Okay. I can get you an encrypted line. But you can't give  _any_  indication of where you are, and you can't talk for any longer than two minutes." The lifting of the shadows from her face made the fear of his imminent demise at the hands of his family almost worth it.

A few minutes later, Irma sat in his chair with Donnie's gaming mic in front of her, listening to the ringing over his salvaged speakers. He watched her hands as they knotted in the alpaca poncho, and he checked his goggles with some concern. Her heart rate had skyrocketed, and her anxiety levels were nearly as bad as they'd been the night she'd been taken. He almost stepped forward to call the whole thing off, but before he could move, there was a click as the line engaged.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end was brusque, impatient. Nowhere near as devastated as Donnie had thought a father who believed he'd lost his daughter should be. But Irma flinched at the sound, her hands shaking, and she took a deep breath before leaning toward the mic. "Dad, it's me."

There was a moment of silence before Mr. Langenstein spoke again. "Whoever this is, if this is your idea of a joke, it's sick."

"No," Irma protested, "Dad, it's really me. I swear."

In a perfect moment of awful timing, Leo appeared in the doorway, Mikey directly behind him. Donnie gestured frantically for them to stay quiet. The voice on the other end had gone very low. "Irma?"

Leo's head snapped toward Donnie.  _Oh, I am so ending up in the hashi after this._  But thankfully, Leo heeded Donnie's dramatic flailing and remained quiet as Irma leaned forward.

"Yeah, Dad, it's me. Look, I don't have a lot of time, but I needed to let you know that I'm okay."

"Oh, thank God," came the soft response from the other end of the line. Then, louder, he added, "The police told us there was an explosion at your house. Where are you?"

Irma bit her lip, closing her eyes briefly. "I can't say. I'm in…" she glanced over at the turtles. Donnie, at a loss, held out his hands. "Uh, Witness Protection."

" _Witness protection_? Irma, what the hell have you gotten involved in?"

"I can't talk about it, Dad. But look, I'm okay and I'm safe, but if anyone comes to you asking about me or saying they'll take you to where I am, don't tell them anything. Don't go with them. Just play dumb, okay?"

Donnie expected a lot of things, but the explosion that blasted over the speakers was not one of them. " _Play dumb_? I called your _mother,_  Irma! I cannot believe this. I knew you were selfish, but to put your family through this, of all things. Was it attention you wanted, because you've certainly got it now. Your sister has been inconsolable. Do you have any idea how much her therapy is going to cost us?"

Tears spilled down Irma's face. "Dad—"

"Oh, don't worry, I'll play your game. If anyone asks, I have one daughter."

The two minute timer silently flashed on the monitor in front of Irma. Glancing over at Donnie, she took a shaking breath, and took hold of the mic. "I'm sorry, Dad. Be careful. Keep an eye on Bekah. Don't let her get hurt."

Something in her shaking voice must have reached him, for the angry tirade stopped. "Irma?"

"My time's up," she said, her voice raw. "Goodbye, Dad."

"Irma, wait—"

She reached forward and cut the call. Easing back in Donnie's chair, she took a ragged breath and scrubbed her cheeks with the back of her hand. "Well," she said. "That was awful."

The three brothers looked helplessly at one another. Leo raised a brow, and Donnie shrugged back at him. Splinter was unquestionably strict, and he could be brutal with punishment when they did something that he thought might put them in danger, but for fifteen years, there had never been any question that he cared for them deeply and without reservation. He was their constant, keeping them grounded. Keeping them safe. As Irma crumpled in on herself, planting her elbows on Donnie's console and burying her head in her hands, Donnie couldn't find anything in his memories of their collective experience to deal with a situation like this. Irma was hurt, scared, and alone, and all her father cared about was how it affected  _him_?

Mikey straightened, resting a hand on Leo's shoulder. "I've got an idea," he whispered. "Be right back!" With that, he vanished into the lair at a run.

Exchanging another look, Leo shrugged and gestured toward Irma. Donnie shook his head frantically, raising his hands, but Leo's firm hand planted on Donnie's tech pack propelled him inexorably toward the crying girl in the chair. "I can't!" Donnie said under his breath, his voice climbing to a desperate pitch. "You know I'm bad at auditory expressions of emotion. You do it."

"She knows  _you,_ " Leo hissed back. "I'll stick around if you need me, but  _she_  needs a friend right now. Go be one."

Donnie's attempt at a reply came out as a small squeak as he stumbled the last few feet toward her. Leo backed off, and Donnie glanced over his shoulder at him, but Leo just gave him another shooing motion, leaving him to deal with this on his own.

 _Okay, Donnie. Think. This is a logic puzzle. What do you do now? You've got a crying girl in front of you. What does she need?_  He stood there, racking his brain as he watched her shoulders shaking with the sobs she tried to muffle. He didn't like it. He was  _angry_  she was hurt, and he just wanted to make it stop, but this wasn't like a cut he could bandage or a medication he could administer. Or… or was it?  _Oxytocin_. Oxytocin could mitigate anxiety and induce calm and feelings of comfort and safety. But how to stimulate the posterior pituitary gland?

Donnie blinked. The answer, of course, was obvious, and he was ashamed of himself for not thinking of it sooner. "Irma?" he asked tentatively.

"What?" came the muffled response from behind her hands.

"May—" he stopped as his voice cracked, cleared his throat, and tried again. "Do you want me to hug you?"

She raised her tear streaked face from her hands, a look of shock on her face. The look soon softened, however, and she pulled off her glasses, setting them down on the console before turning her chair toward him. "Thank you for asking first," she said, and rubbed her eyes again. She sniffled, and the ghost of a smile touched her face as she opened her arms. "Bring it on."

At first, his mind was filled with numbers, trying to calculate the optimal ratio of back pats to hair strokes. Slowly, though, the numbers faded as Irma buried her face against him and cried quietly into his shoulder. This wasn't something you calculated. This was something you felt. Right now, she just needed someone to hold her while she cried and to let her know she wasn't alone.

Eventually, they ended up on the floor, backs against the base of Donnie's workstation. One of Donnie's arms stayed around her as she struggled to bring her breathing back under control. Leo had vanished at some point while Donnie had been figuring out the whole hugging thing, and returned some time later with tea and a rag so that she could blow her nose. She'd seemed really embarrassed by the latter, but she'd used it quite a lot. Her hands were around the teacup now, and though she was still shaking beneath her scratchy poncho, she was a lot calmer. At least, he assumed she was. He really wanted to check with his goggles, but after she'd yelled at him to stop being creepy when he'd tried it previously, he elected to rely on educated guessing.

Leo was back in the doorway, arms folded across his chest as he stood silent vigil. As Donnie met his gaze, Leo raised a brow and looked pointedly at Irma. Following Leo's look, Donnie knew it was time to say something. But the only thing he could think to say was, "I'm sorry." For the fact that she was here. For what the Foot had done. For her father. For the fact that she was sad.

It was enough, though. She nodded, taking a sip of her tea, and the deep breath she took was almost steady. "Thanks."

"Is there anything else you need?" Leo asked.

"Not that you can give me." There was bitterness in the reply, as well as sorrow. She bit her lip and shook her head. "Sorry. That was… Thank you." She sighed. "I'm just disappointed that I'm not even surprised by Dad's reaction."

"But he's your father," Donnie said, with no little amount of dismay. "I know you said you didn't get along well, but…"

Irma gave him a rueful smile. "I know. He's not a monster or anything. I mean, he always gave me everything I needed. Supported me all through my undergrad. It's just… sometimes I think I was born to the wrong people at the wrong time."

"What do you mean?"

All three of them looked over at the source of the question. April stood in the doorway, holding Mikey's hoodie in her hands; without most of the stains, it was several shades lighter. Irma let out a breath of relief and shrugged out of the alpaca poncho. Patting Leo's arm as she moved past him, April sat on Irma's other side. Finally ridding herself of the itchy poncho, Irma took the hoodie from April and slipped back into it.

"Don't you have work?" Donnie asked.

"On my way," April said, "but I had time for a stopover. Mikey called."

"Where  _is_  Mikey?" Leo asked.

April shrugged. "I'm not sure. He said he had to find something." She placed a hand over Irma's. "He told me what happened."

"Ah," Irma said, and rubbed her eyes again. "Yeah. My parents were just kids when they met. Dad was in law school, and Mom was on campus protesting… something. I can't even remember what. I was kind of a surprise. I guess they thought a kid would give them the common ground to stay together or something, and by the time they realized that wasn't the case, it was too late. I was too radical to be the devout little Jewish girl Dad wanted, and not radical enough to be Mom's little flower child. So she moved to a commune in Vancouver, Dad got remarried, Mom… met a guy, and they both started over. My little sister Bekah is like a mini-Dad, and my brother Rainbow is some kind of genius prodigy working on alternative sustainable fuel sources out in Alberta. And I'm just… " she gestured at herself. "Me."

Donnie glanced between April's look of understanding and Irma's expression of utter defeat, his brow furrowing. "But I  _like_  you."

He didn't quite understand why April looked like she was trying not to laugh, or why Irma was staring at him like he'd just said something like "I believe the world is flat." He was just stating the obvious. But whatever he'd said, it made her smile as she leaned into him and hugged him again. "Thanks, Donnie," she said quietly. "I like you, too."

"And I like chocolate and peanut butter Ben and Jerry's," said April, getting to her feet and holding out her hand. "Which is why I brought some with me. And coffee. It's in the kitchen. No gluten this time, I promise."

Irma's smile broadened, and she reached up for April's hand. "You," she said, "are an angel."

April grinned. "I try."

Donnie still wasn't quite sure he understood what was going on, but he helped Irma back to her feet anyway, supporting her as she found her footing on her weak ankle. Before they could go far, however, Mikey returned from wherever he'd been, panting as he clung to the doorway. "Irma! Check it out. I found you some slippers!" He pulled a couple of large fuzzy things out from behind his back, looking at them appraisingly. "Well, more like I found you one slipper twice. But they'll totally work just fine!" Beaming, he held them out to her. One of them was a green slipper with a large, grinning frog's head on it. The other looked like a vivisected panda. But Irma just smiled at him.

"They're great. Thanks, Mikey."

Mikey dropped to a crouch in front of her. "Gimme your feet, Cinderella, we're going to the ball!" Proudly, he slipped the plush things onto her feet. The panda was too big, but with her ankle wrap to pad it out, it actually worked out nicely. Clad in her flannel finery, Irma limped to the kitchen with April for a breakfast of ice-cream and coffee. Donnie paused only briefly as he followed to look back at the console, still spotted with Irma's tears, and something in him hardened. He couldn't do anything about her father. But he could make sure she knew that  _somebody_  wanted her around.

* * *

Over the years, April had learned never to walk in late without a really good apology in hand. So when she finally made it in to the office, Vern didn't even have time to get his first quip out of the way before April was shoving the Venti Starbucks cup under his nose. He paused, sniffing, and looked up at her in astonishment. "Is this pumpkin spice?"

"Yup." April handed him the cup and took a seat at the desk.

"But it's not the season for pumpkin spice," he said, taking the lid off and eyeing the caramel-drizzled whipped cream suspiciously.

"Nope," April said.

"Okay," he said, popping the lid back on. "How the hell did you manage to pull this off?" He took a long sip and closed his eyes in silent appreciation.

"I have a good working relationship with my barista, and I tip really well." April crossed her legs and took a sip of her own latte. "He keeps the good stuff for me in the back."

A shudder chased up Vernon's spine as he let out a low groan of defeat. "Okay, fine. You're forgiven. But next time, try to show up for work when you're actually paid to." He grabbed a stack of files from the desk and started rifling through them. "I hate covering for you with Thompson. I swear, that woman can see straight through to your soul."

"Your sacrifice is noted and appreciated," April quipped. "Seriously though, I'm sorry. There was a crisis. And I had to bring Irma her hoodie; that poncho is unbearable when you wear it for too long."

"How's Langenstein holding up?" Vernon asked.

April told him everything she'd overheard. As the story progressed, she watched his expression darken from mildly amused to genuinely furious. When she'd finished, his hand had clenched into a fist on the table — a gesture only slightly undermined by the pumpkin spice latte in his other hand. She understood completely. He'd been the one who'd cut the story together, after all.

"Damn," he muttered. "Poor kid can't catch a break." He took another hit of pumpkin spice. "So you had to do damage control?"

"Chocolate and peanut butter flavoured damage control," April confirmed.

"Nice," Vernon saluted her with his latte.

Returning the salute, she set the cup down on the desk and picked up one of the files, skimming through the pages. "Plus, you know, it kind of makes up for my last attempt at a supply run. Gluten is  _everywhere_."

"Uh-huh." Vern plucked the file out of her hands."Still doesn't explain why you were late enough to miss the story session."

April fidgeted, suddenly very interested in her latte. "I did a little recon on her place last night, and she wanted to know if I'd found anything useful. I hadn't, but I ran into this guy, and we had to spend some time going over what she knew about him."

Vern choked on a mouthful of latte. Carefully, he set down his cup, making sure it wasn't going to spill before he looked at her sharply. "Guy? What guy?"

"Just a guy in her neighbourhood," she said with a wave of her hand. "I ran into him at the house and he was around the night they took her, so I bought him coffee and he told me everything he could remember about what he saw."

Vern crossed his arm with a scowl. "You went on a  _date_  with some random stranger from a crime scene?"

April rolled her eyes. "It wasn't a  _date,_ Vern."

"I'm not sure I approve of you dating random shady characters you run into at kidnapping sites, O'Neil," he pressed.

April leaned back in her chair, raising a brow at him. "Okay, one," she counted off on her fingers, "I don't actually need your approval to talk to  _anybody_ , and two, you're starting to sound just like Mikey."

Vern's mouth was open for another volley, at her retort, and he grimaced and closed it again. Grabbing his cup from the table, he took a long drink of the latte before setting it down. "Right. So did you at least get anything useful out of this guy?"

"Only by omission," she said, tapping a finger against her knee. "These guys are good, Vern. Casey's the kind of guy who acts like a neighbourhood watch — he keeps an eye out for the folks on his street — but aside from the guy who walks around in the foil hat yelling more than usual, he didn't notice anything strange until the house blew." She uncrossed her legs, feet hitting the floor as she leaned across the desk. "They knew exactly what they were doing. Exactly how to find her. They drove in, grabbed her, and were gone again before anyone even noticed. If they'd cased it beforehand,  _somebody_  would have remembered the van."

"And you think this Casey guy is trustworthy?"

April nodded. "Yeah. I do."

Vern sighed. "Okay. So we can add the Foot to the board for probable suspects. They've got that whole stealthy thing going, when they're not firing rocket launchers on a mountainside. That'd explain why nobody else saw the other scientists go missing."

Nodding, April pushed herself up and went to the board, scribbling "FOOT" in the centre and joining their clusters of photos and notes to it. Like a spider at the centre of a web. She circled the word, her eyes narrowing. "The question is, who's running them if the Shredder's dead?"

"What about Sacks?" Vern said.

April glanced over her shoulder. "He's in jail, Vern."

"An awful lot of people have run pretty lucrative enterprises from behind bars," he pointed out. "Just sayin', we can't rule him out."

Groaning, April added "SACKS?" to the board, joining it to "FOOT" with a dotted line. "I guess I should go talk to him."

"Now hold on there," Vern said, holding up a hand. "I'm thinking he's not going to be real pleased to see you, gal-who-foiled-his-evil-scheme-and-knocked-the-top-off-his-building."

"Technically, that was the Shredder," April pointed out. "Besides, who else is going to do it? McNaughton?"

A grin spread across Vern's face. "Ahhh, there's that O'Neil pluck. Too bad you weren't around during the story meeting to use it."

April felt her stomach plunge, and she hurried back to the desk, dropping into her chair opposite him. "Why? What did we get?"

"Ohhh, some great stuff," he drawled, picking up a file. "Like this one, about corporate tax evasion. Or this one, about a manufacturing plant that exceeded its emissions threshold and has to pay a fine." He placed a fluttering hand over his heart. "A  _fine_ , April."

April buried her head in her hands with a groan. "Vern, you're  _killing_ me."

"Oh, don't worry," he said. "We got a  _real_  good one here."

He shoved the last file across the desk at her. Raising her head, she grabbed the file and started thumbing through the pages. Vern just kept grinning and reached for his pumpkin spice.

"So it turns out," he said, "some people have been seeing  _lights_. Above New York."

April dropped the file on the desk in disgust. "Oh my god. Really? This is  _news_."

"Uh-huh, it's great." His sarcasm throttle on full, he reached over and tugged a photocopy out of the sheaf of papers. "There's even a cell-phone photo."

April glared at him. "That's a blurry photo of a street light."

"No, no, no. Unidentified Flying Object. Gotta get the correct terminology, O'Neil, otherwise someone'll get offended."

She grabbed the file and tossed it at him, too busy trying to stifle her laughter to bother with aim. He had no such trouble, blocking the file with an arm as he laughed. "Face it, April. We got the bottom of the barrel."

"That's not even  _in_  the barrel," she said, gesturing at the file on the floor. "Okay. We'll do some research and write a couple pieces on the other two stories." Swiveling in her chair, she looked back at the board and the sprawling network of clues that covered it. "But the big story — that's right here."

The grin left his face. Uncharacteristically serious, Vern sipped his drink as his gaze swept the board. "You sure you can cover this and still leave the turtles out of it?"

"Please," she snorted, draining her cup and tossing it across the room into the trash.  _Swish. Got it in one._  "I'm a professional."


	7. Chapter 7

Raph hadn't been kidding when he'd told Leo he was planning on sleeping in. What he hadn't anticipated was waking to Mikey hanging over him, desperate to relay everything that had just happened when Donnie'd let Irma call her dad. It was a little hard to follow — Mikey had a habit of talking too fast and jumping to whatever thought happened to cross his mind — but Raph thought he got the gist of it. And the gist was pretty bad. He actually had to get Mikey to repeat himself a couple times to be sure he was actually hearing right, and what he heard just didn't sit right. Irma may have been a geek, and kind of annoying when she got off on a nerd rant with Donnie, but no one deserved to hear that kind of thing from their dad. He couldn't imagine anything like it coming from his own.

So when he entered the main room to find Donnie and Irma taking up the entire couch, he refrained from booting them off the only comfortable seat in the house, and settled for rolling his eyes. Donnie sat in the middle of the couch, while Irma sat sideways, her back against the arm of the couch, her legs across Don's lap. Both of them had their laptops; Irma's on her stomach, and Donnie's resting on Irma's knees.

Instead, Raph went to the table, where Leo had spread out a transit map. He took a seat on the floor next to him, thought better of continuing what they'd started the night before, and looked instead at the marks on the map. "Whaddya got?"

Leo glanced up from the map and shifted over to give Raph a little more room. "Red's where the scientists were taken," he said, indicating the points he'd drawn on the map. "Green's where we know there's been Foot activity."

"Any patterns?" Raph asked.

Leo shook his head. "None that I can find. I sent a text to April and Vernon asking them to take a look at it, too. Keep an ear to the ground on Foot sightings. But nothing so far."

"Ah- _ha!_ " Irma's shout cut across the discussion, making Donnie jump hard enough he almost dropped his laptop. "I found it!"

"What?" Leo demanded. "A pattern to the abductions?"

Raph straightened. "The Foot's hideout?"

"A link in the data?" Donnie asked.

Irma shook her head. "No, the last damn ultralight materials mod for the sniper rifle."

"Oh, sweet!" Donnie snapped his laptop closed, setting it aside and reaching for the one Irma held. "Where was it?"

Irma shifted to kneel next to Don, a hand resting on his shoulder as she pointed at the screen. "It was on this stupid ledge. The only way to get it is to stand right underneath and then pan up with the camera until the object field highlights."

"Wow," Donnie breathed. "That is diabolical. How many months have we been looking for that thing?"

"Four," Irma said with a smirk. "I told you we didn't need the wiki to find it."

"I'm sorry," Leo cut in. Both of the nerds on the couch looked up at him, and Donnie, at least, had a look of alarm on his face that said he recognized the tone Leo was using. Raph sat back, glad that it wasn't directed at him for once. "But while we're sitting here trying to figure out why scientists are going missing and what the Foot has to do with it, are you two playing  _video games_?"

"Looking through a thousand lines of code is very difficult work," Donnie protested. "We needed adequate mental preparation!"

"Sorry," Irma muttered, her cheeks turning red. She took the laptop back from Donnie and hit a couple of keys.

"Whoa," Donnie breathed, looking over her shoulder.

"What?" Irma asked, turning the laptop away defensively.

"Your coding is beautiful," Donnie answered, reaching out to turn the screen back. "I've never seen anything like it."

Raph glanced at Leo. "Are you seeing this?" he said under his breath.

Leo smacked him lightly. "Stop. It's cute."

"It's nauseating," Raph whispered back.

Irma, her face even redder, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Um… thanks."

Donnie frowned a little. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said. "It's just that nobody's ever told me I have beautiful code before."

"Well they should," Donnie said. "I've never seen code this elegant. No wonder Stockman hired you."

Raph opened his mouth despite Leo's warning look, but they were saved by Mikey's arrival. Dropping down on the other side of the table, Mikey deposited an armful of food on Leo's map. "Snack time!" he said proudly.

"Aww, Mikey," Leo protested, shoving a sandwich aside. "You're getting food on my strategy map!"

"Hey, we gotta eat. This is brain food, brah." He glanced over at the couch. "Hey Irma, does pizza have gluten?"

"Yes, Mikey."

"How about crackers?"

"Yup."

"Uhhh…" Mikey rifled through his collection of snacks. "Meatball sandwich? Mac and cheese? Oh, I got it, Oreos!"

"That's all glutinous, Mikey," Donnie sighed. "April has a shopping list." He adjusted his glasses, peering at the table. "I'll take an Oreo."

"Guys!" Leo straightened, holding up a hand for attention. "Guys, I've got it! This abduction, right here! It falls  _right_ in line with the Foot activity here and here!"

"That's marinara sauce, bro." Raph reached over and wiped the red spot off the map.

Leo's face fell. "Aw, come on!" He turned to glare at Mikey, who sheepishly reached out to move the food off the table.

"My bad," Mikey muttered.

Irma shook her head, her hands moving over the keyboard as her eyes stayed fixed on the screen, but she was smiling. Fair enough, Raph thought. If someone got something good out of Mikey's annoying habits, he wasn't a total loss. Grabbing a sandwich for himself, Raph filched an Oreo from Mikey's stash, tossing it to Donnie, who caught it without looking up from staring at Irma's keyboard.

"Okay, what?" Irma asked, looking up at Donnie.

"Huh?" was Donnie's intelligent response.

"You're staring," she said.

"Sorry," Donnie replied sheepishly. "I just like watching you type. You know, with all your tiny fingers. It's like your hands are dancing."

"I'm gonna be sick," Raph muttered, as Leo and Mikey dissolved into a chorus of snickers. The entry alarm sounded and Raph rose to his feet, grateful for the escape. But he couldn't help noticing that Irma was trying really hard to hide her smile behind her hand.

* * *

On arriving at the lair, April decided it was probably best to ignore Raph's muttered comment about saving him from the nerd brigade as she and Vernon followed him down the entry tunnel. A wash of guilt flooded through her at the expression of utter relief that crossed Irma's face as she spotted the bags they were carrying, but the guilt quickly took a backseat to her reporter's curiosity as she spotted the map spread across the table.

"Did you find anything new?" she asked, plopping down on the floor next to Leo and peering over his shoulder.

"Aside from marinara sauce, no," Leo said. Based on the tone he was using, she suspected it had something to do with Mikey, so she didn't bother asking him to clarify the seeming non-sequitur. "Did you have a chance to talk to Stockman."

"No," April said, not bothering to hide her irritation. "He won't answer my calls or e-mails, and no one's seen him at the lab since Irma's apartment made the news."

Vern sat down on the other side of the table, leaning against the side of the couch, and reached into one of the bags. "Gluten-free steak burrito?" he offered quietly, passing it up to Irma. Looking at it like it was the holy grail of fast-foods, Irma mouthed a quick 'thank you' before tearing the wrapper open and digging in.

"So," Leo said, staring morosely at the map. "We're back to square one."

"We… well, we may have an idea," April said.

Vern glanced at her sharply. "O'Neil," he warned.

"We don't have a choice, Vern, they have to know."

She'd gotten Leo's attention. She watched the change come over him, as he shifted from frustrated teenager to ninja team leader. "What do we need to know?"

April could feel her shoulders tensing. It was amazing how despite the fact that she'd named them and hand-fed them as babies, they still had the ability to make her feel like a kid sometimes. Well, she refused to be intimidated by a boy who's poop she'd cleaned up when she was twelve. Even if he did have a good two feet and two hundred pounds on her. Steeling herself, she turned to face him and did her best not to make the next thing out of her mouth sound like a question rather than a statement.

"I'm going to go talk to Sacks."

That got an instant reaction out of all of them. Four voices lifted in protest before Leo raised a hand, the others falling reluctantly silent to let him speak for them. "April, you can't. Sacks is way too dangerous."

"Seriously," said Mikey, leaning forward over Raph's shoulder. "Don't you go putting yourself back on his radar, April. I can't have anything happening to my best girl."

"Okay, come on," Raph said, planting a hand on Mikey's face and shoving him back. "Are you serious? Irma's right there, dude."

Mikey, his eyes wide, looked between Raph and Irma until understanding dawned on his face. "Ohhh, no, you've totally got the wrong idea, bro. Irma's great and all and I want her to feel at home at Casa del Tortugas cause she's totally gotten a raw deal from those Foot buttheads, but she's not my  _girl._  She's all old and stuff. You know." He gestured across the table. "Like Vern."

Stone faced, Vern reached into a bag, pulled out a bottle, and twisted off the top. "Gluten-free beer?" he asked, passing it up to Irma.

Her face a mirror of Vern's, Irma took it from him. "God, yes."

Vernon grabbed a second bottle for himself, the look he shot at April just daring her to laugh. She did her best to hold it in as she turned her attention back to Leo. At least the exchange had diffused a little of the tension.

"Leo, I don't like it any more than you do, and I would happily go the rest of my life without seeing that man again." She ran a hand through her hair, looking at the scattered dots on the map. "But right now, he's the only lead we have on what's going on with the Foot."

"You think he's working from jail?" Leo's brow furrowed.

"Scum like that, gotta have connections," Raph pointed out. He turned back to April, unconsciously mirroring Leo's expression. "Still. I don't like the idea of you goin' in their either. If Sacks is still connected, you know he wouldn't think twice about sending the Foot after you if he thought you were on to something."

"Exactly," Leo said. "There has to be another way of finding information."

A sudden, sharp gasp from the couch drew their attention. Irma was staring at Donnie's laptop, her face red with anger as she turned an accusatory look at him. "Have you been going through my files?"

"What?" Donnie looked like he'd just stumbled across a very angry, very venomous snake and had no idea what to do to keep from getting killed. "I-I was just going through my files on Project Renaissance."

"That—" Irma said, jabbing at his screen. It turned his laptop enough that April could see some kind of molecular diagram on it. Handing her beer to Vern, who took it wordlessly, she grabbed her own laptop and jabbed at the keys. "That, right there!" She turned her screen toward him. "You're honestly going to tell me you haven't gone through my files for that?"

Donnie stared at Irma's monitor, and his jaw slowly fell open.

"Donnie?" Leo rose slowly to his feet. "What's wrong."

"What is that?" Donnie asked, very softly.

Irma stared at him, her anger fading as she took in his very real shock. "That's the 3D molecular rendering of the nanotech catalyst."

"Donnie!" Leo snapped.

Slowly, Donatello reached out and turned Irma's laptop to face the others in the room. Then, he turned his own. "That," he said, pointing at Irma's computer. "Is Stockman's catalyst. And this—" he gestured at his own screen "—is my analysis of the mutagen traces left over from Sacks' antidote."

The two screens were virtually identical.

"Wait," Irma said. "Are you telling me that the catalyst we've been using for our nanotech is the same thing that turned you guys into mutants?"

"In all likelihood." Donnie turned her screen back so he could see it better. "There are some minor variations in the orientation of the peptide bonds…"

"Yeah, we had to alter a few of the bonding sites." Irma said, typing again. "It was causing some serious side-effects in the test animal populations in the absence of certain hormones in the body. It was easier just to alter it to its current configuration. This is the original catalyst." She showed him her screen.

"It's a match," Donnie said, grabbing Irma's shoulder. "Where did Stockman get this?"

"I don't know," Irma said, rubbing her eyes beneath her glasses. "He kept it secret. Said it was too important to risk anyone getting their hands on it. The only reason I have the formula at all is because I couldn't program the nanobots without it."

"Well," April said. "Looks like I don't have a choice. If there are any answers in this mess, Sacks has to have them."

"I agree."

The aged voice, though soft, cut through the tension in the room like the blade of a katana, and all eyes turned to the doorway to Splinter's room. The rat stood there, his hands folded behind his back, as he looked to the others with deep concern in his dark eyes.

"Dad," Leo said quietly. "You should be resting."

"I have rested enough," Splinter said. He stepped forward until he was close enough to rest a hand on April's shoulder. "April, child, you have already done more for this family than we have any right to ask. Yet I fear there is more to this situation that could have grave consequences for this city and this family if we allow it to remain unchecked. Sacks is dangerous. You must not underestimate him. But if he is the only one who holds the key to unravelling this mystery, we must discover what he knows. Before anyone else pays the price."

"We should work together," Donnie said to Irma. "Try to find any additional correlations between Stockman's work and Project Renaissance."

"Right," Leo said. "While you're doing that, Raph, you'll take patrol tonight. We can't let up on the search for Foot activity now, but if you see anything, do not engage." He jabbed a finger into Raph's plastron. "Just take note and call for backup."

Raph folded his arms. "Oh yeah? And where will you be?"

Leo sent a meaningful glance April's way. "Mikey and I are going to be tailing April, just in case."

"Good idea," Vern said. "And I'm coming too."

"Vern," April began.

"Come on, O'Neil. Sacks is a spider with a really big web. No way you're going in there alone. Besides, I'm your producer. Safest way to go in without raising too much suspicion is to make it look like we're doing a story. He won't give you anything, but he won't wonder if there's anything else going on."

"Hey," Leo said. "Good thinking."

"Thanks," Vern answered. "Maybe next time you could not sound so surprised about it."

"All right," Leo said. "Get what you need. We move at sundown."

Vern stood up, shifting the bottles to one hand as he reached for one of the bags he and April had brought with the other. "We should get this stuff into the fridge before the ice cream melts. Langenstein, you wanna help me out?"

Irma blinked, looking up at him the same way Donnie did when you jogged him out of computer trance. "Huh? Oh, sure. Right." She set her laptop aside and eased herself to her feet. One hand still working at his keyboard, Donnie grabbed the bo leaning against his side of the couch , hit the pneumatic to extend it, and passed it to her. She took it from him, grabbed one of the bags, and limped after Vern, leaning heavily on the staff as she went.

"Oh, they forgot this," April said, picking up her own bag. "I'll just—"

But Splinter's hand on her wrist stopped her before she could follow. She looked at him, a question in her eyes, and was struck by the sadness in the look he gave her. "What's wrong?"

"Sacks has hurt you enough," Splinter said softly. "I do not wish for him to harm you again."

"I'll be careful," she said. "I promise."

"Still," he sighed. "I would be a fool to think this is the only time you will be in harm's way if you continue your association with this family."

April's jaw set, and she planted her free hand on her hip. "Well, we'll just have to get used to it, because you're not getting rid of me."

He laughed lightly at that, shaking his head. "No, I am not so foolish as to think  _that_. But I would like it if you would consent to train with me. Irma as well. I do not have fifteen years to make you ninja as my sons are, but I could at least teach you how to evade those who wish to harm you."

April smiled, and her hand found his. "I'd like that. Thank you, Splinter."

"You are most welcome," he assured her. "Now, go. I can smell that gluten-free pizza in your bag defrosting."

With another smile, April took her leave of the rat and went to find Irma and Vernon. But when she reached the doorway, she held back, her brow furrowing. Irma had seated herself at the table and was passing things to Vern, who stood by the fridge fitting them inside. But it was his expression that stopped her. She hadn't seen anything like it on his face in a long time.

"I cannot believe you laughed at that," he was saying as he stashed a package of gluten-free fig newtons on top of the fridge. "Nobody laughs at the Newton joke anymore."

"Are you kidding? My Saturdays used to start with  _The Mighty Hercules_ ," Irma answered, passing him a carton of eggs and some fresh milk. "I used to do the same thing when anybody offered me a newton." She smirked. "But then, I'm all old and stuff, remember."

Vern groaned, tossing a package of rice pasta into a cupboard. "Yeah, that was harsh." He paused, glancing over his shoulder. "But… you and Don—"

"Whoa, let me stop you right there," she said. "There is  _no_  'me and Don'. He's probably the best friend I have right now — moreso, since the whole saving me from being kidnapped by a terrorist commando organization thing — but he's  _fifteen_. I'm a teacher. That is so many kinds of wrong I don't even know where to begin. If anything, he's like the awesome little brother who doesn't hate me that I never had."

"Oh. Good." Vern coughed. "I mean, not  _good_ , but, you know, the whole, um… wow. They make gluten-free bacon. Would you look at that." He stopped, package in hand, and looked at her in dismay. "Ohhh, hey, this is so not kosher, is it?"

Irma laughed, shaking her head. "Don't worry about it. I dropped out of the whole organized religion thing around the time I had my falling out with Dad."

"I heard about that," Vern said, sticking the bacon in the fridge. "The dad thing, I mean. I'm sorry."

Irma shrugged. "It's been a while. But Dad didn't exactly approve of my liberal feminist leanings to begin with, and when I got to university and started bringing home girls to dinner as much as I brought home guys, he had it out with me. Said that I couldn't be 'weird' or the people at the synagogue would talk. And I said fine, I just wouldn't got to the synagogue anymore. From there, it was just a short fall to tattoos and bacon." She sighed, resting her chin on her hand. "I still observe the high holy days, and Hanukkah's fun when I have people around to exchange presents with. But my relationship with God is a lot more personal and private these days. Just another thing for Dad to be disappointed about."

Vern took a step toward her, holding out a hand. "Langenstein—"

"Hey, I'm okay. He's not a monster or anything. I mean, I got an undergraduate education on his dime. I can't really lament about how hard my life has been. I was just never the kid he wanted."

"Well, he's an idiot." Vern dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. "Look, I wanted to ask — Donatello has a secure internet connection, right?"

Irma looked quizzically at him. "Yeah."

He pulled out his business card, along with another card from the wallet, and held them out to her. "I know all your stuff got trashed in the fire, but the pyjamas and Michelangelo's hand-me-downs look is just not working for you. I want you to go online and use my credit card to order yourself some new stuff. My address is on the business card — you can have it delivered to me, and I'll bring it down for you."

Irma just stared at the card like it was a live wire. "Vern… I can't do that."

"Sure you can," he said.

"No, I really can't." She shoved it away. "I'm an unemployed grad student. I can't pay you back."

"I don't want you to." Vern took her hand and pressed the card into it. "Seriously, Langenstein. You probably wouldn't even be in this mess if I hadn't gotten cute with the editing, and I can spare it. I've got a good savings plan, and I got some money from Nana Fenwick's estate last year. She'd want you to have it. She was a very meticulous woman. Very fussy about appearances."

Irma laughed, finally relenting and taking the card. "What, sushi cats not sophisticated enough for you?"

"Nah, they're fine for everyday," Vern said, grinning. "But what happens when you need some fancy pyjamas for a night on the town."

"You mean under the town," she said. "House arrest, remember?"

"Temporary," he said, with a wave of his hand. "These guys are good. It'll work out. And then you'll be sorry."

Irma's look softened, and she glanced down at the card. "Vern… I don't know how to—"

"Don't worry about it," he said. "Now, was that burrito enough, or can I make you a sandwich?"

Smiling, April leaned her head against the wall as she watched Vernon doing his best to make Irma laugh. She'd interrupt with her bag of groceries in a minute. But it was nice to be reminded why, even if things hadn't worked out between the two of them, she was glad that he was still her friend. He was a great guy — even if she couldn't live with him.


	8. Chapter 8

The bricks were cold against Casey's back, but he wasn't much inclined to move. The air was still heavy with the smell of fresh paint, and he'd done this enough times to know that his clothes and his presence would warn off anyone likely to actually take offense at the fact that someone had spraypainted the alley wall. It'd be dry soon enough. Jamming his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket, he turned his attention to the people on the street, keeping an eye out for anyone who might mean trouble for the neighbourhood. Between the cops who kept coming in to hassle the kids and the jerks who'd blown up Langenstein's house, there was more than enough to make him nervous.

 _More suits_ , he thought, rolling his eyes as a pair of businessmen walked past. That was the other problem lately. Damn gentrification. Yuppies moving in with their organic juice bars and "quaint" lofts, not caring that family businesses had been torn down to build them, or families displaced so that some schmuck could have a cute apartment. Suits were way too common these days, and Casey wasn't entirely sure they weren't just popping them out of some mold somewhere. Jerks all looked alike. No imagination. No creativity.

He glanced over his shoulder at the mural covering the wall, and grinned. Well, he could provide enough creativity to make up for it. Even if it was a kind of creativity not everyone appreciated.

A flash of yellow out of the corner of his eye drew his attention back to the street, and he felt his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline.  _Speak of appreciating._ Leaving his post, he darted across the road, earning a blast of car horns for his caught the attention of pretty much everyone on the street, so when he finally caught up with his quarry, she was standing with her arms crossed and a brow raised. Skidding to a halt in front of her, he grinned and ran a hand through his hair. "Uh, hey, April."

"Hey yourself," she said, her voice warm with amusement.

"So, uh," he stammered, "I was just, uh, goin' for a walk…"

"Uh-huh." She planted her hand on her hip. "Is that why you smell like a paint factory?"

"Uh…" he said cleverly. Clearing his throat, he gestured at her. "So. What brings you to this neck of the woods? Lemme guess. You missed this handsome mug?"

April snorted, and he wasn't quite sure whether he should be insulted by that. Shaking her head, she held up the brown paper bag in her hand. "I had to make a run for rugelach from that coffee shop we went to. I've got a friend with a craving."

"Can't blame 'em," he said with an approving nod. "It's good stuff. I used to bribe Langenstein with it so she'd fix my computer. Might've dipped in for myself a bit."

"Thanks for the endorsement." April reached into the bag and pulled out one of the cookies, offering it to him. Not one to ever turn down an offer of baked goods, Casey took it from her and took a bite. Grinning, April folded up the bag again. "Welp, I should get going."

Casey's eyes widened. "Wait a second!" he protested, or tried to, hampered somewhat by the mouthful of rugelach. Coughing, he forced it down, thumping on his chest as the crumbs stuck in his throat. April had paused,  _that_  look on her face again, and he silently cursed his timing. What was it about this girl that made him constantly feel like the chump his fifteen-year-old self had been? His attempt at playing it cool thoroughly decimated, he cleared his throat and attempted to salvage something of the situation. "So, I've been thinking about the other night. I had a really good time, and unless I'm really bad at reading people, you didn't hate it either, so I was thinking, maybe, you'd, uh… like to do it again sometime? Tonight, maybe?"

April's face fell, her shoulders drooping. "Oh… Casey…"

Casey held up a finger, cutting her off. "Hold up. Lemme stop you right there. If you're gonna crush my spirits, could you kick me in the gut instead? It'll be faster, and I won't keep hearing it in my head tomorrow."

"No, no, that's not it. Oh my god, you are such a drama queen." She whacked him in the arm with the bag of rugelach. "I can't tonight, I have to get back to my friend." Digging into her pocket, she pulled out her phone and thumbed her way through her calendar. "But I could do Thursday."

Thursday. He was supposed to be pulling a shift for Big Mike at the garage on Thursday on the truck with the temperamental carburetor. Screw it. Big Mike would understand. Guys like Casey didn't get more than one shot with girls like April, and for a six-foot-six burly bearded dude, Big Mike had a surprisingly sentimental side. Every time they showed "Love, Actually" on TV, Big Mike would put it on the garage screens and pretend that it didn't make him cry every time.

"Thursday it is. Say, our usual coffee shop, six o'clock?"

"Make it six-thirty and you've got yourself a deal," April answered, with a smile that chased away the last of the evening's chill.

Casey grinned, jamming his hands into his pockets. "You mean I've got myself a date?"

"Don't push it," April said with a laugh. But she didn't say no.

Casey practically skipped his way down the street as he made his way home, still scarcely able to believe she'd said yes. She was a gorgeous, funny, smart TV reporter, and he was just a mook who washed out of pro hockey and fixed cars for way too little pay. But hey, he was pretty and he knew where to find the best deli sandwiches in the city. That had to count for something. At least, finally, he had one girl he could bring home to Ma and be reasonably sure his mother would find nothing to complain about.

He paused, frowning as he gave the idea more thought. Scratch that. Better not tempt fate. Ma could find fault with anyone. Except Oprah. She  _really_  liked Oprah.

A cold breeze whirled around him, dipping icy fingers down the collar of his jacket, and he shuddered violently. It had been a long time since he'd gone to see his mother. Maybe it was time he went for a visit. Or at least gave her a call. Life had been getting weird lately, and it just kept getting weirder. The kind of weird that made a guy think that maybe he oughtta tell his mom he loved her before…

Dark shapes moved on the other side of the street. Casey's brow furrowed, and he took a step toward the park.  _The Suits? What the hell kind of Suits go into a deserted park at this time of night?_

Casey's lip curled into a grin.  _The kind of Suits I need to introduce myself to._

A short time later, he tugged his mask into place and slipped over the wall. Reaching over his shoulder, he grabbed his favourite bat and tugged it from his bag. Slowly, he wove through the trees, searching for signs of the elusive men. Whatever they were after — drugs, mafia maybe? — they'd regret taking it down on his turf.

He could hear something now. A high, whirring noise filtering through the brush. It sounded electronic — what the hell were these guys up to? Cautiously, he took a two-handed grip on the bat and inched closer, peering through the shadows. Assholes couldn't wear white suits, nooo, they had to stick to black. If one of them would just say something—

A hand locked around his wrist, yanking his grip off the bat. "Kraang has been seen in this place by one who should not be in this place."

Another voice, as cold and robotic as the first, answered from the dark. "Kraang must terminate the one who has seen Kraang in this place where the one should not be."

Casey snorted. "I'd like to see you try it, chump." With all his weight behind it, he swung the bat at the head of the Suit holding him.

It bounced. With a resounding clang, the bat freaking  _bounced._ "What the f—" He swung again, pushing himself past his limits.

The bat cracked, leaving him staring at a splintered stump. "Aw, shit," he breathed.

A fist like iron drove into his face, and he knew the second the blow connected, sending bright fireworks across his vision, that if he hadn't been wearing the mask, his face would have been hamburger. As it was, he hit the ground hard, his hearing muted by the ringing in his ears. Spitting out the blood that filled his mouth —  _shit, if I lost another tooth, Ma'll brain me —_ he rolled to his knees, grabbing the stick from his bag. Twirling it once to build momentum, he swung it at the knees of the Suit advancing toward him.

The damn stick splintered, too.

Dropping the remains of it into the dirt, Casey scrabbled at his bag for the golf clubs, but the Suit — the Kraang thing — got there first. Those icy hands grabbed his wrists, twisting his arms behind his back and lifting him from the ground. Unable to help himself, Casey howled as he felt his joints begin to pop. Slowly, the other one moved toward him, drawing some kind of gun from beneath the tailored jacket.

A second later, there was a crunch of denting metal, and the Kraang flew through the air to collide with a nearby tree with a ringing clang. The shadows moved, and Casey barely had time to duck the massive green fist barreling toward him before it hit the second Kraang holding him. A curse blistered the air as Raph drew back his hand, shaking it out, but the Kraang's hold on him loosened, and Casey dropped to the ground. Raph's hand latched on to the strap over Casey's shoulder, dragging him back to his feet.

"Dude," Casey gasped. "These things aren't dudes!"

"What?" Raph snapped his eyes not leaving the Kraang who was staggering up from the base of the tree. One of its arms was bent at a ninety degree angle, and its head was on backward.

"They go  _clang!_ " Casey cried.

"Not helping!" Raph snapped.

Too late. Both of the Kraang were back on their feet, charging toward them. Casey yanked his driver from the bag, letting Raph handle the one that was still more or less in one piece. Backwards-head had taken a couple of steps to get its bearings, but it had recovered fully now, loping in an odd backward gait. Bracing himself, Casey took a hard swing at the knee, hoping that the joints of whatever-this-was were as vulnerable as a center forward's.

The joint bent with a crunch, and the Kraang toppled, digging furrows into the ground. Tightening his grip, Casey started wailing on the thing's head. The back of the skull started caving in, and he actually had a brief moment to think he was getting out of this alive before the unbroken arm shot out and grabbed his ankle, yanking his feet out from under him.

As he went down, howling, he caught sight of Raph pounding on the other Kraang. The turtle had those fork-things out again, and as the Kraang turned to reach for what would probably be another weapon, Raph plunged one of them into the thing's shoulder and ripped its arms from its body. It landed in the grass nearby in a shower of sparks.

"Holy shit!" Casey yelped. "They're terminators!"

"That's just a movie!" Raph hammered a fist into his Kraang's face, which was looking decidedly flat now, and plunged the fork-thing in his other hand straight into the Kraang's eye. With more sparks, it began to convulse.

Casey's Kraang had started using its good hand to crawl up Casey's leg. No more time to admire Raph's handiwork. With a yell, he whacked it a couple times on the head and turned the club, attempting to pry the hand off his leg. The fingers tightened, and he screamed again. Damn thing was like a vise. It was going to break the bone. Snap it like a—

With a bellow of rage, Raph vaulted over the sparking remains of the Kraang he'd been fighting and grabbed the one on top of Casey by the face, yanking it into the air. With his other hand, he hauled back and drove his fist into the Kraang's chest. The Kraang flew back several feet, but its face remained in Raph's hand.

Casey's piercing scream was matched by Raph's, several octaves lower. Flailing, he swatted at Raph's leg, the only part of him that he could reach, as Raph flung the face away from himself and hopped in a frantic circle. Raph was the one who regained control, frantically shushing Casey, and finally clamping a hand over Casey's mouth in desperation. Of course, since the turtle's hand was the size of a goalie's mitt, it covered Casey's entire head, cutting off his air supply His screams muffled, Casey whacked at Raph's arm with the golf club until he let go, and drew in a gasping breath as soon as he was free of the turtle's grip.

"Shhh!" Raph hissed. "Dude, you scream like a girl."

Casey pointed frantically at the unmoving remains of the Kraang. "The dude's  _face came off!"_

"You said that's not a dude!" Raph shot back. He hunkered down next to Casey, looking him over. "You okay?"

"No, I am not okay," Casey spat. "The dude's FACE CAME OFF!"

" _I know!_ " Raph rubbed a hand over his face. "I am so outta my league here. I gotta get this back to the nerd squad."

Casey narrowed his eyes. In the heat of the moment, he'd forgotten why they'd fought the last time, but it was all flooding back now. "You—"

Raph raised a hand. "Don't. Just don't, okay? We can go at it again next time, but this—" his sweeping gesture took in the sparking remains of the Kraang. "This is big. And bad. We need to figure this out, and fast, before there are more of 'em."

Shuddering, Casey rubbed at his bruised arm. "You really think there's more?"

"Trust me," Raph said, without a trace of humour in his voice. "There's always more." Pulling Casey to his feet, Raph walked over to the Kraang he'd been fighting and hoisted it over a shoulder. "Come on," he said. "I can't do this by myself."

Casey looked over at the other Kraang corpse, and let out a long, slow groan. "You have got to be kidding me."

Over an hour of grunting, sweating, and cursing later, Casey dropped his burden to the floor and kicked it out of sheer spite. Regretting the move almost instantly, he hopped around on one foot for a minute, swearing, before he took in his surroundings. "What is this dump?"

Crashing metal rang through the small space as Raph dropped his own Kraang. "This used to be home," he said. "Before the Foot blew it up."

Casey shoved his mask back off his face, genuinely horrified as he looked over at the turtle. "Shit, man, I'm sorry."

Raph shook his head. "Naw. You didn't know. And it coulda' been worse." He let out a huff, folding his arms as he surveyed the desolation. "We all got out. It coulda been a  _lot_  worse."

 _The Foot blew it up._  Which reminded him…. Planting his hands on his hips, Casey turned to face the turtle. "Look," he said, "I know it's a sore spot, but about Langestein—"

That was the last thing he remembered. When he woke up again, he was on the edge of the park with a screaming headache and no idea how he'd gotten there. Cursing, he pushed himself to his feet, staggering a few steps before catching himself on the park wall.

"Freaking  _ninja!_ "

* * *

April had done things that terrified her before. Running into her father's lab. Sneaking into a subway station full of terrorists taking hostages. Falling from the top of a skyscraper. Come to think of it, most of the terrifying things in her life had happened in the past couple of months. After all of that, walking down a hallway to talk to one man should have been a breeze.

But at the end of that hall was the man who had taken everything from her when she was a child. The man who had almost taken it all again just a few months ago. Even though she knew he was powerless to hurt her in this place, there was a part of her that just wanted to turn tail and run. Especially after finding out that he was only allowed one visitor at a time.

A hand came to rest against her shoulder, and though the touch was light, it was enough to make her startle half out of her mind. Embarrassed, she glanced over her shoulder, but there was no mockery in Vern's face as his hand tightened just a little. "It'll be okay, O'Neil," he said quietly. "You got this. You're gonna go in there, and do what you're good at, and when you're done, the Fenwick Express and I'll be waiting to take you away."

For the span of several breaths, April just stood there, unable to say anything around the lump in her throat. Smiling, she reached up and squeezed his hand, suddenly very, very glad that he was part of her life. In response, he hugged her to his side and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "Give 'im hell, Boss."

Squaring her shoulders, April nodded once and moved away from him. This was her fight, and she wasn't backing down.

* * *

Leo shifted, looking out over the parking lot. It wasn't nearly late enough. The shadows at the base of the water tower hid them fairly well, but the sun was barely down, and he could feel the light crawling under his shell and making him itch. He hated being so far away from April. How were they supposed to watch out for her when she was behind reinforced walls and razor wire? Of course, shuko spikes would get them over the wall easily enough, and the wire shouldn't be a problem for the shells… Slightly mollified, he settled in and began planning ways to break into the prison. Some of them were slightly more difficult, and one of them required the use of a dirigible of some sort, but he had a good stable of alternate plans going by the time Mikey's humming finally became unbearable. "Will you cut that out?" he whispered sharply.

"Bro, how can you just sit there?" Mikey shot back. "April's in there gettin' her Lois Lane on. How are you not jazzed about how  _cool_  that is?" Mikey bounced to the watertower and grabbed for the edge, pulling himself up and hooking his legs over the edge so that he could flop backward, swinging slightly as he dangled upside down. "And if she's Lois Lane, you know what that makes me?"

"You're not Superman," Leo said flatly.

"What about Superboy?"

"No."

"Supergirl?"

" _Mikey_!"

"All right, all right." Mikey sighed, using his arms to start himself swinging again. "Does that make Vern Jimmy Olson?"

Leo groaned and placed his head in his hands.

* * *

She couldn't believe that she'd once admired the man. Once, she had thought him caring, and warm. Now, the eyes that stared at her from across the partition were dead. Cold. She'd say reptilian, but that was an insult to the reptiles she knew and loved. He was more like a robot. He looked human, and acted human, but there was nothing inside him.

"Well, well. April O'Neil. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

April took a slow, deep breath. "Mr. Sacks. I think you know why I'm here."

"Do I?" he said, leaning forward. "Please, April. Enlighten me."

 _Damn,_  she thought.  _I guess that would have been too easy._

"The Foot Clan," she said. "Who's leading them now that Shredder's gone and you're in here?"

He laughed, a sound like oil and grease. "Oh, sweet little April. Assuming I knew anything about that nefarious terrorist organization — which, of course, I do not — why on Earth would I tell you a single thing?"

April leaned back, crossing her legs as she glared at him through the scratched, dirty glass. "Because if you do, I'll do a story. The media will keep talking about you. New York will always remember Sacks tower and what you did."

He raised a brow. "And if I don't?"

"Then I won't say anything," April replied. "Everyone else has already moved on. You're old news to them. I'll find my story somewhere else, and you'll sit in here, small, and nameless, and forgotten."

He stared at her for a very long time without saying a word. Finally, he eased away from the glass. "I have money, Miss O'Neil. Even after what they confiscated, you could save until your retirement and not come close to what I've got in the bank right now. What makes you think I'd be remotely interested in your proposal?"

"You're still here," she said.

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "So I am," he said. Sitting back, he mirrored her pose, resting his arm across his knee. "So. Tell me why you think the Foot has a new leader."

"You watch the news, don't you?"

"Absolutely," he said. "And can I say, I do miss those pieces you used to do. It's a shame, really. I haven't seen you in spandex in months."

 _Ugh. Gross._  She suppressed the urge to shudder.  _He's slime. This is not news. Keep digging._ "You're a brilliant man, Mr. Sacks. Surely I don't have to explain which current events lend themselves to the Foot's MO?"

"Oh, I don't know," he shot back. "The world really is in such a sorry state these days, it could be any number of things. Why, just look at you. You're looking positively  _green_." He smirked at her. "You really should see someone about that. I hear it's catching."

She'd known it wasn't going to be easy. But for the next quarter of an hour, Sacks just sat there smugly, dodging her questions and reminding her pointedly at every turn that he, too, knew her greatest secret, and though few people were likely to do anything other than have him committed if he talked about them, it was a risk she wasn't willing to take.

* * *

" _Donnie!_ "

Raph crashed into the lair, nearly wiping out on Donnie and Irma, who'd set themselves up back-to-back on the floor surrounded by a ring of laptops. Irma gave a yelp and grabbed the one with the stickers all over it, holding it close as she stared up at him.

"What?" Donnie staggered to his feet. "Did something happen?"

"You gotta come! The old lair. The thing — I pulled its face off — it went clang, and then— You gotta come  _now!"_  He glanced down at Irma. "She's a nerd too. Better bring 'er."

Raph didn't always get along with Donnie. Donnie's insistence on giving every single stupid detail of every single stupid thing grated on him; he didn't need to know how something worked, he just needed to know what it did and where to punch it if it needed breaking. But when they  _did_  get along, which was often, it was because Donnie was the kind of guy who listened to the broken babble of words coming from Raph's mouth, scratched beneath the strap of his goggles once, and said only, "Lemme get my tech pack. Should we wake Splinter?"

"Depends. How's he doing?"

"He could use the rest if it's not an emergency."

Raph considered it, and shook his head. "He'll need to know. But let him rest while he can."

Nodding, Donnie hooked his toes under his bo and flipped it, catching it and passing it to Irma. As Donnie took off to gear up, Irma used it to lever herself to her feet.

"You gonna be able to walk on that?" Raph looked pointedly at her ankle.

"Yeah, I should be fine with the stick. It's a lot better than it used to be." She carefully shifted her weight, testing the ankle.

It seemed to hold up okay, which was a relief. He really didn't want to have to catch her or anything if she keeled over. He was starting to think twice about bringing her with, but Donnie seemed to think she was really good with her tiny robots, and right now, Raph didn't want to take any chances.

"How'd you hurt it like that, anyway?" he demanded.

"Oh, oh, I can answer this one!" Mikey's disembodied voice burst from one of the computers.

Raph turned, scowling down at the open Skype window he'd missed when he'd come in. Mikey's face loomed way too close to the camera in his phone. "What are you doing on the line? Aren't you supposed to be on lookout?"

"He was bored." Leo's voice was faint, obviously a ways away from where Mikey was, but there was no mistaking that level of  _done_. Raph was just glad it wasn't leveled at him this time.

"But seriously, Donnie and I saw the surveillance video," Mikey continued, unfazed by Leo's tone. "She kicked a Foot dude in the nuts so hard, he fell down. It was sick, dude, you shoulda seen it."

Well. Raph hadn't expected that from a tiny little thing like her. But then, there had to be something Donnie saw in her, other than the nerd stuff."Heh. Nice." Raph tapped her lightly on the arm.

Irma staggered sideways a couple steps, but caught herself quickly and shrugged. There was an edge to the smile she gave him. "The gloating got cut a bit short by the cattle prod they stuck me with for the trouble." She rubbed her side. "Those things hurt."

"Yeah. We know," Donnie said, reappearing as he shrugged his pack into place. Irma's face fell, and she reached out to pat Donnie's shell. Giving her a small, understanding smile, Donnie shrugged and picked up the laptop with the open Skype. "Say goodbye, Mikey."

"No!" Mikey protested. "We can get bars down there. Guys, take me with you!"

Not waiting to see if Donnie actually fell for it, Raph reached out and shoved the laptop closed. "Come on," he said. "You're not gonna believe this."

* * *

"I'm sorry, April," Sacks said in response to her latest line of questioning. "I'm afraid my mind's just not what it was in the good old days."

April's fists clenched as she watched the guard in the corner check his watch. Time was almost up, and she was getting nowhere. Desperately, she went back over the files in her mind, searching for something she'd missed. Anything that might catch him off guard. Get him talking.

_The good old days…_

April's eyes widened.  _Oh my god. The good old days._ She'd missed it before — he'd looked different then and she'd been so young. But she finally realized why Stockman had looked so familiar when she'd shown up to interview him. Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her, making connections where they didn't exist. It was a risk. A hell of a risk. But if she was right…

"Baxter Stockman," she said.

Sacks blinked. "What about him?"

"Back when my father worked for you, in the early days, just before — just before Project Renaissance," she said, leaning forward. "Stockman worked for you, too."

"Interned," Sacks corrected. "Forgive me, I fail to see where this is—" He froze, his eyes widening. "Oh. Oh, of course. The missing batch of mutagen." Sacks turned his eyes back to her, and with a polite nod, hung up the phone and ended the conversation.

Panic coursed through her.  _No. No no no._ She'd thought she'd figured it out. Thought that Stockman had been in on Irma's abduction  _with_  Sacks, but clearly she'd just screwed up colossally and put the scientist smack in the middle of Sacks' radar. Whatever she'd just done — it was bad. Really bad.

She needed to get back to the guys.

* * *

It had been a long time since he'd been back. Since he'd rescued the last of his tech, Donnie hadn't wanted to have anything more to do with the place where he'd watched his father almost die. Too many unpleasant memories that his perfect recall was only too happy to throw back at him.

The spring thaw certainly hadn't been kind to the place. Water had seeped into the cracks left behind by the explosion, inexorably prying its way into the support structures until half the ceiling had come down. Stagnant water pooled on the floor, the drain clogged by debris. Mikey's pizza box furniture had practically melted from the damp, and the mold and mildew growing on the wet cardboard filled the air with a fetid, choking perfume.

He reached out to steady Irma with a hand beneath her elbow as she stumbled on the uneven concrete. She shifted a little closer, and he could feel her shivering through the fabric of Mikey's hoodie. "Oh, guys," she said, and even her hushed voice was too loud in the broken lair. "I'm so sorry."

Donnie could sense Raph coiling to respond, ready to lash out as he always did at whatever made him uncomfortable. The comment prodded spots that were still sore in both of them. Donnie turned his head, ready to step in as Raph rounded on them, but both of them caught sight of Irma's face at the same time as she surveyed the ruined lair, and their gazes met over her head in shared understanding. She truly meant it. She'd been through the same thing, and she didn't even have this much left. He watched Raph visibly swallow whatever he'd been about to say and reach out to pat her awkwardly on the shoulder. "Thanks. But we ain't here for that. C'mon."

"It's just a place," Donnie said quietly as they moved to follow Raph. "The variables that make it home are all at the new lair." It sounded good. He almost believed it himself.

"Variables of home, huh?" Irma eased carefully around a stream of water from above. "I like that. Quotient of action figures to the power of game hours logged?"

"Multiplied by a factor of gigabytes of drive memory," Donnie added with a smirk.

"Hey," Raph broke in. "Nerd later. Look at this."

Donnie swallowed hard. Raph stood in the doorway of the dojo, and though they'd been in and out since to collect the weapons that had survived the explosion, Donnie's most vivid recent memory of the place was of watching the Shredder plunging the blades of his gauntlet into their father. Irma pulled ahead of him, but her limping gait faltered as she caught sight of whatever was in there.

"No way," she breathed.

It took only a few steps to bring him up next to her, a hand resting on her shoulder. In another moment, he found himself echoing her.

The twisted metal automata were like nothing he'd ever seen before. He dropped down into the remains of the dojo, leaving Irma to make her own way as he tugged his goggles down, activating full spectral analysis. "Raph…" Donnie reached out, lifting a mangled metal limb and flexing it, watching servos move through the thin covering of skin beneath the shredded suit. "What in the world…?"

"We ran into these guys in the park." Raph jumped from the walkway, landing hard next to Donnie. "Took a hell of a lot to bring 'em down."

Donnie glanced up sharply at his brother. " _We?_ "

"Uh, yeah." Raph fidgeted beneath Donnie's stare. "I had help."

"From whom?"

"Just a guy."

Donnie raised a brow. "Does Leo know about this guy?"

Raph's eyes narrowed. "No, and you ain't gonna tell him or  _I'm_  gonna let it slip that you buy software with online gambling credit."

Donnie's eyes widened in horror. "You wouldn't."

"Try me."

" _Guys!_ " Irma broke in, hobbling her way up to where the mangled metal men lay. "Focus please." She jabbed Raph in the ribs with Donnie's bo. "You're seriously saying you were fighting some kind of robots today?" Her lip wrinkling in disgust, she prodded the head of the faceless one with the end of the bo. The clang resonated through the room.

"Yeah," Raph said, dropping into a crouch next to them. "They were mean, too. Didn't say much. Just pretty focused on wiping us out."

"The strong, silent types, huh?" Irma eased herself down next to Donnie and poked a finger at the metal skull, frowning as she examined the green goo stuck to her fingers. "Okay, that was probably a really stupid thing to do without gloves." She quickly wiped her hands on her sushi cat pants. "Donnie, what the hell did I just touch?"

He wished he could tell her. He raised a hand to adjust his visor feeds, but it didn't help much. "I don't know. It's an organic compound, for sure, but I'm not getting anything useful here. My sensors are having a lot of trouble working it out."

"All I know is that this dude isn't a dude," Raph said, drawing a sai to tease away the torn material from the thing's chest.

"Thank you for that extremely scientific assessment," Donnie said.

"Bite me, Don."

Irma shifted, leaning closer to the robot. "Wait, do you guys see this?" She took hold of Raph's hand, ignoring his startled look, and guided Raph to help her expose the thing's chest and stomach. She was right. The stomach was looking distinctly swollen, and it looked like there was a tear in the extremely lifelike skin over the abdomen, revealing something pink beneath. Irma reached out with Donnie's bo and prodded the tear.

The skin split, and the three of them started screaming as what appeared to be a large, tentacle-bearing brain spilled from the robot's stomach. By the time the panic subsided, all three of them were clinging to one another, as far away from the thing as they could get without falling off the drain.

Reeling his terror under control, Donnie shushed the other two. "Guys, I think it's dead." He plucked the bo from Irma's hand and poked at the brain thing. It rolled over, revealing what appeared to be a mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth and a tongue that lolled from the mouth. The creature didn't move, and the pale yellow ichor seeping from it seemed like a good indicator of it's current deceased state.

"What the hell  _is_  it?" Irma whispered, smacking Donnie's hand as he continued to prod the thing.

"It looks like mutant calamari," Raph answered.

"It's not mutant calamari," Donnie murmured. "That's just silly. Squid have  _ten_  tentacles and smooth rather than rugose skin, not to mention gills and a beak rather than-"

"Donnie," Irma said sharply. "Big picture. A big squiggly brain thing just fell out of a robot's stomach. What was it doing in there?"

Frowning, Donatello leaned forward, examining the now-empty abdominal cavity. He reached out, running a finger along one of several smooth indentations along the cavity wall. "Um… controlling the robot, I think."

"Wait," Raph said, grabbing Donnie's shoulder. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Donnie asked. A second later, he heard it. A soft clank coming from the direction of the second robot on the floor.

Three heads slowly turned in its direction, just in time to see the second prone automaton lurch like a stranded fish. The human figure thrashed, its abdomen swelling like a balloon, and with a sick, wet, tearing sound, a second brain thing tore free of the body and darted for the shadows, its shrill shriek accompanied by the panicked screaming of the rest of them as Raph plucked Irma up like a ragdoll and they bolted in the opposite direction.

* * *

If Leo's teeth clenched any harder, they were going to crack. He'd had a bit of a reprieve while Donnie and Irma distracted him, but Mikey was bored again, and his humming had escalated to singing. And if he had to listen to that damn song one more time… His eyes "Mikey."

"...it just goes on and on my frieeeeends…"

"Mikey!"

"...and they'll continue singing it forever just bec-mmppph!"

" _Mikey_!" Leo whispered harshly as he grabbed his brother's face, turning it until Mikey was following his line of sight. "We got movement."

As soon as he felt his brother snap to battle-readiness, Leo let go and reached for his katana. Black-clad figures ghosted along the walls toward the prison gates, and Leo was certain it was no coincidence that they were showing up now.

Mikey's eyes narrowed. "Oh, no. No way. They're not touching our girl on  _my_ watch."

"Time to teach them a lesson." Two strides took him to the edge of the roof, and he flung himself into the night, accompanied by the flare of Mikey's board.

* * *

The only thing stopping Irma from a full-on mental breakdown was the solid bulk of the two turtles wrapped around her in the dark, their ragged breathing punctuating her own.

"What the hell?" she squeaked. "What the everloving  _hell_?"

"Where is it?" Raph's gruff voice couldn't quite hide the edge of panic. "You see where it went?"

A soft electric hum heralded Donnie's switch to night vision. "It's got to be here somewhere… we have to find it."

"No," Irma whispered. "We have to get  _out_ of here." Chill seeped into her as the two turtles slowly moved away, scanning the dark.

"I really don't think that's advisable," Donnie murmured. "If we don't know where it is, there's a good possibility it could track us if we-"

He kept going, but that was all she heard. Something fetid and slimy dropped onto her from the pipes overhead, and the scream that tore from her was cut short as impossibly strong tentacles wrapped around her neck, squeezing until the breath stopped in her throat. Her fingernails scrabbled fruitlessly across the tough, sinewy skin as she fought for breath, but that only served to make the thing tighten its grip.

In another moment, Donnie was next to her, his massive fingers attempting to pry the tendrils from her neck. "Raph!" he cried. "Help me! She can't breathe!"

Swearing, Raph dropped to his knees next to them, but instead of joining Donnie in his attempts to stop the thing from strangling her, he drove one of his sai toward the bulbous body of the creature. It opened its mouth, a shriek like broken glass erupting from it as the weapon scored along the tough skin, but the blow had hurt it enough that Donnie was able to tear it free, flinging it into the shadows. Irma bent double, gagging as her lungs fought for air.

"Now what did you go and do that for?" Raph snapped.

"I had to get it off her," Donnie snapped back, his hand stroking Irma's back as he encouraged her to breathe. "It was killing her!"

"Yeah, but now we have to  _find_ it again before we can kill  _it!_ " Raph wrapped his arm around Irma's waist, but she couldn't stop coughing long enough to make even a token protest as he hoisted her off the ground. "Come on. Let's hide her and then track the thing down once and for all."

"But-" Donnie flailed weakly as he followed in Raph's wake.

"You want that thing getting loose? You want it finding  _Sensei?"_

With a quiet groan of defeat, Donnie stopped protesting and followed his brother. Maybe it was the hysteria setting in, but as Irma fought for air, tucked beneath the arm of a giant teenage mutant chelonian, she couldn't help wondering if April was having this much fun.

* * *

The only thing that kept April from running from the building once she'd passed the last set of doors were the eyes of the guards on her. She didn't want to attract any undue attention while she was being shadowed by her two teenage mutants. It was probably for the best, anyway. If she'd been running, she'd never have caught the movement in the shadows as she entered the parking lot.

She threw herself to the side, the grasping hands of the black-clad figure barely missing her, and dug into her pocket, her hands closing around one of Donnie's gifts. When the inevitable guy behind her grabbed hold of her arm, she was ready for him. A howl ripped from his throat as she jammed the small taser into his shoulder. The charge in the little thing wasn't enough to take him out completely, but it was enough to get him to let go.  _Then_  she was running, her feet pounding across the concrete as a sea of darkness rose up to meet her.

 _Shit. Shit shit shit._  Well, that settled any questions as to whether Sacks had contacts on the inside.

The Foot were closing in on her. She could hear the footsteps echoing, but little else. Then, the sound of a car horn shattered the silence. Light tore through the darkness, and the screech of car tires blistered her ears as Vern slammed into the back of the group. April glanced back over her shoulder, her wide eyes meeting his as he sat behind the wheel. Guards began to boil out of the prison, far too far away. Vern was yelling, and she didn't have any difficulty making out the word.

_Go!_

He'd be okay. The Foot couldn't risk hanging around him when the prison guards were so close. They were already dragging their fallen comrades away. But for April…

She doubled her speed as the remaining horde moved to flank her.

" _Coming through!"_

That voice, that familiar,  _beloved_  voice, had never sounded so sweet. She had a single moment of euphoria as relief flooded through her before Mikey slammed into her with the full force of his rocket boosters behind him. The breath left her in a rush as his arm wrapped tightly around her waist and her feet left the ground, and her scream came out as more of a breathless squeak as he barreled through the remaining Foot, the nunchucks in his other hand clearing a path as they went. As soon as she recovered enough to move, her arms went around his neck, and she clung for dear life as he used a car to launch them both skyward, the Foot in hot pursuit.

"Hey Angelcakes!" Mikey chirped, shouting to be heard over the sound of his board and the weapon-fire below as they crossed a roof. "What's up? Thought we could hang out. You know, you, me, the stars-" He paused to launch them off a ledge, spinning like the blades of a helicopter until they came down on the adjacent structure. "Whaddya say?"

They'd left her stomach behind on the last building. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Oooh, not on the shell please," he said, glancing at her in concern. "I just had it detailed."

Some of the Foot had made it to the roof behind them, and April's eyes widened as the rifles came to bear on them. "Mikey!"

A second later, the mountain that was Leo piled into the soldiers, taking three down and knocking the rest from the roof. As more swarmed up to take their place, he turned in pursuit of her and Mikey, placing the shield of his shell between her and the guns. "Go," he cried as he gained on them fast. "There's too many. Mikey, we need to get April clear!"

"On it, brah!"

April squeaked and clung fast to Mikey's shell as he kicked off again, heading for the shipping yard nearby. Far in the distance, the mournful cry of a train whistle drifted over the sounds of gunfire, and April's eyes widened. "Mikey. Mikey, no."

"Hey, don't worry," Mikey soothed, lashing out to kick a Foot soldier coming in from their right. "We got this. I've always liked trains."

Somehow, she did not find that as reassuring as he seemed to mean it to be.

* * *

Irma lay in the dark, slowly going over the life choices that had led her to where she was now, stuffed beneath a sewer grate in an abandoned pumping station as stagnant water dripped down on her, waiting for two oversized mutant turtles to find the freak of nature brain monster that had jumped out of the stomach of a human-skinned robot and seemed hell-bent on choking the life out of her. But no matter how many times she went over it, she couldn't get around the fact that this just wasn't the kind of thing your career counsellor factored in during your sessions.

She couldn't even hear Raph and Donnie any more, but told herself that was just the ninja thing going on. They hadn't abandoned her. Slowly, she reached up and pushed on the grate above her, but as the laws of physics hadn't altered themselves in the ten minutes since she'd tried last, it was still too heavy to move. With a soft breath, she rested her head on her arms, trying not to think about the composition of the muck beneath her. They hadn't abandoned her. They were coming back. She wasn't going to die here in the mud in a storm drain, forgotten by everyone except the rats.

Something brushed her ankle again and she kicked out violently. She'd already  _had_ this fight with the rats. "Forget it, this is  _my_  storm drain," she whispered harshly.

In response, something rough and sinewy twined tightly around her ankle.

Irma drew in a sharp breath, trying frantically to dislodge the thing that held her, but her suspicions were confirmed as a second tentacle wrapped around her other ankle, pinning her legs together.

Irma screamed, thrashing to free herself, but the cry turned to one of agony as the thing sank its teeth through the fabric of her sushi cat pyjamas and bit deep into her calf. Fire blossomed up her leg as the teeth tore into her, and she managed to wrench one leg free, reaching down in an attempt to jam the frog slipper in the thing's jaws as it readjusted its grip on her.

The grate above her lifted suddenly, a crash reverberating through the lair as the grate was flung into a nearby wall. The light from Donnie's tech pack nearly blinded her before it was blocked out by Raph's bulk as he hauled her from her hiding place, revealing the massive brain-thing that clung to her leg like a tumour. It hissed, biting though the frog and into her leg once more in defiance before Donnie's bo connected with it and flung it back into the shadows.

" _Stop_  that!" Raph bellowed, dumping Irma to the ground. "You take care of her. I'm gonna go squish that little bug."

"Irma?" Donnie bent over her, and she raised a hand to shield her eyes as the light blinded her again. "Irma, are you okay?"

She blinked, but it didn't help clear the rainbows from her eyes. In awe, she moved her hand between them, her jaw dropping as the motion left sparkling trails across her vision. She giggled softly, waving her hand at him. "It's pretty!"

"What the  _hell_  is she talking about?" came Raph's shout from the shadows.

Scowling, Donnie adjusted his goggles, and Irma couldn't help laughing again at the change in his appearance. "You look like a bug."

"No no no no no no…" Donnie breathed. "Raph! I think it's venomous! She's showing definite signs of narcotic intoxication!"

"Great," Raph spat. "As if we didn't have en-OW!"

"What?" Donnie yelped.

"I think it  _bit_  me! I'm gonna pound that thing into paste!"

Donnie dragged Irma upright, keeping an arm around her as she wobbled - the rest of the world took a while to catch up with her. As her head lolled against Donnie's shoulder, she watched Raph stalk into the light from Donnie's pack.

Something brushed against her hand. She glanced down and shrieked, recoiling from the tentacle inching for her wrist. An instant later, the appendage was gone, Raph's sai quivering in the concrete next to her.

"What does that thing have against me?" she asked, her voice still rough from the earlier strangling. "You're the one who ripped its face off."

"No, I ripped its friend's face off," Raph corrected brusquely.

"Same difference," Irma said.

"That's a good question," Donnie said, his fingers on Irma's wrist as he checked her pulse. "We're clearly the obvious threats, so why doesn't it go after us first?"

"Because I'm the prettiest," Irma said, only a trace of slurring in her voice - she was proud of that.

Raph smirked. "Keep telling yourself that, you're gonna make Mikey jealous."

"Actually, she may have a point," Donnie said. "Whatever the origin of these things, they were attempting to disguise themselves as humans, which suggests a need to infiltrate and get close. Maybe Irma has something it wants. Or needs."

"My sweet, sweet, blood?" Irma suggested, gesturing at her blood-stained pants. With a quiet curse, Donnie tore off the shredded remains of her pant leg below the knee and bound it tightly around her injured calf.

"So that means if it thinks it can get to her…" Raph looked thoughtfully at Irma. "It might come out and play."

Irma's eyes widened. Things didn't look so pretty anymore.

* * *

April knew she was screaming. She could feel it tearing her throat raw. But all she could hear was the shriek of the train's engine as they plunged out of the air toward it. Her scream cut off abruptly as they landed, her teeth jarring together with aching force.

"See?" Mikey shouted proudly over the noise of the engine. "I told you we could make it- whoa!" One arm still locked around April's waist, Mikey ducked out of the path of the katana that cleaved through the dark around them. A second later, Leo landed next to them, kicking the attacker out of the way and sending him spinning off the train.

"Stay sharp, Mikey, they're still coming." The katana in Leo's hands rang against those of the new combattants falling to the train around them in a silent, deadly rain.

These Foot soldiers were different. Leaner. Faster. Quieter. These ones didn't carry guns.

"Duuude," Mikey said. "When did the Foot start recruiting  _actual_  ninjas?"

"My guess?" Leo said, grunting beneath a dual assault. "Just after meeting us."

"Huh. Makes sense." Mikey dropped off his board to the roof of the train, kicking the boosters and sending the board crashing into the ninjas on their other side. As the Foot were thrown from the train, Mikey caught his board on the rebound and dropped it in place on his back. "They're not bad."

"No," Leo said between grunts. "They're not. So get April someplace safe and come  _help_ me."

"Oh. Right." Mikey hitched April more securely against his side. "Hang on, April. This might get a little bumpy."

Her nails practically dug furrows into his shell as Mikey pounded down the length of the train, vaulting the gaps between cars until they came to one with a ladder protruding onto the roof. He set her down carefully, guiding her hands to the rails, and he didn't let go until he was certain she had a secure hold on it. "Okay, you sit tight. We'll just go take care of this, and I'll be right back."

"Sure," April said, fighting the tremor in her voice. "Take your time. This is comfy."

His grin flashed in the darkness, and he was gone.

* * *

Leo didn't like this. Not one bit. These guys were  _good._  Way too good. A splintered, dying terrorist organization shouldn't suddenly have ninjas on par with him and his brothers. Ducking a tanto flung from the dark, he retaliated with one of his own, allowing himself a small moment of satisfaction as his blade met its mark, sending another soldier toppling from the train. The moment didn't last long, though. Not with the others closing in.

He was fighting on both sides now, the sound of his katana singing against the blades of his opponents the only sound to be heard over the roar of the train. It was eerie. The Foot were usually so… so loud. At least, it was quiet until Mikey joined the fray. His brother ploughed into the Foot ninjas with a whoop, and he didn't have to worry about his left side any more.

"What took you so long?" Leo shouted.

"Gotta show my girl a good time," Mikey retorted. As Leo engaged with both katana, another ninja bore down on him with a naginata, only to fall beneath Mikey's spin kick to get dragged off by the wind of the train's motion. "You know how it is."

"Is she safe?" Leo asked, driving his foot into the chest of his current opponent and flinging him off the roof.

"As safe as anyone can be on top of a speeding train with a bunch of ninjas after her," he answered.

Dispatching the last of his own opponents, Leo turned to stare at Mikey. As Mikey snared his assailant's wrist with the chain of his chucks and flipped him off the train, his eyes met Leo's, and Leo watched the delight drain from his face. "Uhhh…. we should probably get back there."

"You think?"

Without wasting any more words, the brothers pounded down the length of the train, just in time to see the shadowed figures closing around April. Leo surged forward, using his katana to clear a path for Mikey, who swooped in to grab their hogosha out of the way of the sword slicing toward her. As Leo dispatched his opponent, the others vaulted to the roof of the next car in pursuit of Mikey and April.

"Leo!" Mikey called. "Think fast!"

April's shriek of protest was all the warning Leo had. With barely enough time to sheathe his katana, he reached out and caught April as she flew through the air toward him.

She landed with a breathless gasp, her arms locking around his neck. "Okay," she panted, and he could feel her shaking. "No more of that."

"Hey, we're the experts, remember," Leo said, edging back as the Foot realized their quarry was back on this car. "We know what we're doing."

"I am  _not_  a football," she protested.

"Nah, you're way too pretty for that!" Mikey called as he ran past them, the Foot in pursuit. "Leo, I'm open."

Ignoring April's protest, Leo tossed her back to Mikey and drew his katana once again, meeting the upraised blades of the Foot ninja with a clash.

Tucking April against his side, Mikey evaded the Foot on his heels by dropping down and swinging into the open door of the car on which they stood. A moment later, a chorus of aggrieved mooing erupted from the car.

"Oops," Mikey shouted. "Sorry, cows!"

Leo grinned as Mikey swung back up to the roof, taking out another two ninjas in the process. "Mikey, I told you, I'll take you to the petting zoo for your birthday, now quit playing with the livestock."

"Awww," Mikey whined, spinning over Leo's shell to plough into the two attempting to sneak up from behind. "But I love cows! They're so cute when they go moo."

A heavy thud shook the train, and the brothers glanced over toward the caboose. A decidedly heavier Foot soldier stood there, levelling a rocket launcher on his shoulder.

"Oh, come  _on,"_ Leo said. "Where are these guys even coming from?"

"Looks like they got tired of playing fair," Mikey said. "Good thing. I'm beat. We're almost at Ray's. We could stop and get a snack."

Leo glanced at his brother, understanding dawning as he read Mikey's expression. "Wow, that's actually a good idea."

Mikey stuck out his tongue. "Don't sound so surprised, brah. I'm full of 'em."

The remaining Foot were grouping around the one with the rocket launcher as he fiddled with the controls; apparently, firing heavy ordnance on a moving train wasn't as easy as it looked. Leo and Mikey closed ranks, advancing slowly on the clustered ninjas.

"Sorry, boys," Leo said, batting a shuriken away with his katana. "This is your stop."

As one, Leo and Mikey dove off the sides of the train, catching hold of the roof and swinging in amongst the cows below, leaving the Foot with just enough time to see the low rail bridge the turtles had been blocking before it swept all of them clear off the top of the train.

Leo patted a cow soothingly as the sound of an explosion reverberated behind them. "Hey. Looks like he got that rocket launcher working after all."

"Good for him," Mikey said, offering a hand to April to help her down from the hayloft where he'd stashed her. "I knew he could do it if he put his mind to it."

"Come on," Leo said. "There's a subway connection coming up, and it's heading our way. We can have a nice leisurely trip almost all the way home."

"Remind me to talk to you sometime about your definition of 'leisurely,'" April groused, picking straw out of her hair. But she paused to smile at them both. "And thanks. For the whole saving my life again thing."

Leo grinned. "It's one of the perks of being family."

Mikey scooped her into his arms. "You know, aside from the whole getting to hang out with me thing."

April rolled her eyes. "Right. But let's go hang out with the others. We've got a lot to talk about."

* * *

 _We are SO going to be talking about this_. Irma shivered, wrapping her sodden hoodie more closely around her as she tried to convince her eyes to stop showing her rainbows and flashing lights.  _Assuming I survive being bait_.

She knew the boys were there in the dark, waiting. But sitting on the drain next to the lifeless robot husks, she felt about as alone as she ever had. "Heeeeere brainy brainy brainy," she whispered. Her foot was cold. She mourned the loss of the frog slipper. "Alas, poor Kermit."

"This ain't gonna work if she goes nuts," a whisper drifted from the dark, followed by an annoyed shush.

Somewhere near her feet, something growled softly.

Her eyes widened, and she cleared her throat. "I'm just sitting here, minding my own business. It's a great day to be lunch for a monster brain thingy, lemme tell you."

A pink tendril slithered up over the edge of the drain. Slowly, the rest of the thing followed.

They'd hurt it at least. Ichor dripped from its side, and a few of the shark-like teeth had snapped off. But that didn't seem to faze it much. The jaws parted, revealing more rows of teeth, and this close, she could see the milky venom that dripped from them. The thing stank like rotting fish guts left out in the sun, and bile rose in her throat as a tentacle slithered up her leg. The damn thing was huge. How the hell had it even  _fit_  inside that robot's stomach?

_Okay, guys. Any time now…._

_...please?_

A sai flew through the air. The brain-thing screeched, but it didn't move fast enough. The sai pierced its tentacle, pinning it to the ground.

Not waiting for an engraved invitation, Irma rolled off the grate, splashing into the water that pooled at the base of the drain. As she toppled, Raph and Donnie were already leaping over her head, laying into the creature with weapons drawn.

Screaming, it ripped itself free of its pinned tentacle. Warm yellow blood spattered Irma as it came after her again, but the boys kept it from reaching her. The problem was, it was fast, slippery, and hard to kill. Their blows kept glancing off that seemingly-fragile side, or it would latch on to one or the other, stopping them from getting a clean hit. They weren't letting it go this time, unwilling to have to repeat the game of hide-and-seek all over again, but they couldn't kill it either, and from the sounds of it, she wasn't the only one who'd be nursing bites at the end of the day. If that thing kept biting until the venom in their systems got strong enough to take them down...

Her gaze swept frantically over the walls, desperate to find something to help. She was fairly certain that the small bear with the red ribbon standing on the walkway and waving to her was a byproduct of the venom, but the large box with the lightning bolt next to it probably wasn't. Gritting her teeth, she hauled herself to her feet and began dragging her way through the water toward the ladder on the far side.

By the time she made it to the top, her ankle was screaming in pain, and she'd thrown up once when the spinning in her head got too intense, but unless this was a really quality hallucination, the electrical box beneath her hands was very real. Shushing the bear's excited squeaking, she yanked it open.

Donnie was way better at the hardware side of tech than she was, but she knew enough about electrical basics to do this much. Doing it while the brain-monster-venom equivalent of three sheets to the wind was probably an incredibly stupid thing to do, but she didn't see much of a choice. It didn't take long to complete the setup, and she turned back toward the fight, her hand on the breaker switch.

"Hey, guys!" She shouted. "Clear!"

Donnie looked up at her, and his eyes widened before he gave her an understanding nod. "Raph, get this thing off me!"

"With pleasure," Raph growled, slashing at the tentacles wrapped around Donnie's arm.

The brain thing screeched, transferring its grip to Raph and sinking its teeth into his hand. But even as Raph howled, Donnie was swinging his bo. It hit the monster with a wet squelch, sending it flying to the puddles below. As soon as she heard the splash, Irma pulled on the master switch with all her strength.

Light brighter than day flooded the lair as power coursed through the cables she'd dropped into the water, sparks arcing through the monster and lighting it up like a gory fireworks display. In moments, the power box overloaded, plunging them into darkness again, but it was accompanied by a sizzling sound, and the smell of rotten calamari.

"Okay," Donnie conceded. "Maybe it  _is_ more of a squid. Now I'm hungry."

Irma giggled helplessly, unable to move from her slump against the wall. In a few moments, the light from Donnie's lamp fell over her as the two turtles staggered up the ladder and dropped down next to her.

"So," she said, looking from one to the other. "Did we win?"

"We won," Donnie confirmed. "Seriously, I could really go for Italian right now."

"I could eat some if it's not pasta," Irma said. "And if the room's not spinning."

"You did good," Raph said, punching her in the arm.

"Ow." She looked down. "What's that for?"

"For showing that having another brain around ain't such a bad thing."

"Just not  _that_  brain," Donnie said, pointing at the smouldering remains.

"No, definitely not that brain." Raph reached for Irma, frowning as his hands closed on air. He tried again, missing a few more times. "Hey. Hold still."

Irma, still motionless, glanced at Donnie. He rose to his feet and picked Irma up from beneath Raph's grasping hands. "Maybe you should let the one with the smallest amount of venom running through him handle the breakable human."

"Yeah, maybe." Raph staggered as he regained his feet, reaching out for the wall for support. "Let's go home."

* * *

Leo hadn't been expecting to find the lair empty. Surely, whatever errand Raph had pulled Donnie and Irma away on, it couldn't have taken as long as a train fight across half the city. Splinter had woken as they'd called for the others, and had been similarly baffled.

So when Raph and Donnie staggered through the door, carrying Irma, the three of them giggling like small children and looking like they'd just been to war, Leo thought he could be forgiven for yelling.

"Leo, " Raph protested. "We're practiaclly… practialicly… we're almost adults. We can handle ourselves."

"Yeah," Donnie said, stumbling on the carpet. With a hiss of alarm, Leo rescued Irma from his arms and dumped her on the couch. She already looked like she'd been beaten with a stick - she didn't need a three-hundred pound turtle falling on top of her to boot. "What Raph said." He glanced down at his arm. "I need disinfectant. Loooots of disinfectant." Looking up at the others, his gaze fell on April and he grinned. "Hey! I like your new follicular arrangement."

April ran her hand as best she could through the tangles left by the train chase. "Uh… thanks Donnie. You want to tell us what happened to you?"

"I'd like to know what happened to  _all_  of you," Vernon said from the doorway, surveying the room as if it were the scene of an accident. "O'Neil, you okay?"

"Yeah," she said, smiling. "Thanks to you."

"Well, these guys helped, I guess." Vern patted Leo's shoulder, his hand stilling as he spotted Irma. "Jeez, Langenstein. Did you get the number of the truck that hit you?"

Irma giggled. "Truck. Toot-toot!"

Vern raised a brow. "Is she drunk?"

"Nah." Donnie dropped down next to her with the first aid kit he'd retrieved. "Just a small adverse reaction to calamari brain venom."

" _What?"_

"Okay, okay," Leo said, rubbing his temples. "Everybody sit down and we'll go through everything from the beginning. Slowly. And without colour commentary."

"An excellent suggestion," Splinter said, looking disapprovingly at Raph, who appeared to be swatting at some kind of invisible bug around his head.

They spent the next hour getting each other up to speed. By the time they'd all finished, the venom had worked its way through Donnie's system and very nearly out of Raph's. Irma was still a little groggy, but less inclined to giggle as Donnie finished cleaning up the bites on her leg. She sipped slowly at the tea Splinter had made to soothe her throat, which was mottling with large purple bruises even as they talked. Vernon sat next to Irma, breaking off small pieces of the gluten-free rugelach April had picked up for her and handing them over, insisting that some food would help counter the effects of the venom.

"Okay," April sighed. She was on the floor next to Mikey, using his shell as a backrest. "So we went out looking for answers, and ended up more confused than ever. Does that about sum it up?"

"Pretty much," Leo said. "There's a connection we're missing somewhere, I can feel it. This is too convenient to be coincidence."

"I think you're right," April said, ignoring her phone as it buzzed. "It's there. But we're missing part of the puzzle."

Vern was looking at his own phone, and he straightened. "O'Neil," he said.

It was his tone that got her attention. Alarm spreading across her face, she dug out her own phone, and they watched her go pale as she read the text on the screen.

"April, child," Splinter urged gently. "What has happened?"

"Stockman's lab just blew up," she said quietly. "He's missing and presumed dead."

On the couch, Irma groaned, burying her head against Vern's shoulder. He stared at her in surprise for a moment before his arm went around her, gently patting her arm as Donnie took her free hand in silent comfort.

"So…" Mikey looked at the others. "What does that mean?"

"It means we probably have some breathing room," Leo said, folding his arms. "It means we regroup, reassess, find our missing connection, and take them down. Whatever's going on, it's big. We're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. We don't move until we know exactly what's waiting beneath the surface."

"Agreed," Splinter said, moving to stand next to his son. "Now, I think it is high time to savour the victory of tonight before we plan for the battles to come. I believe food is in order."

"Calamari," chorused Raph, Donnie, and Irma, followed by a fit of giggles.

With that, the sombre mood broke. Chatter swelled to fill the lair with warmth, and Leo stepped back to watch as Donnie and Irma regaled Mikey with increasingly grisly descriptions of the brain-thing, while Raph and Vern argued over which Italian place delivered closest to the sewers.

"Hey," said a soft voice at his elbow. He looked down at April as she rested a hand on his arm. "This is your victory celebration, too, you know. Don't you be hanging back here all night."

"Listen to her, my son," Splinter said from his other side. "She is very wise."

There was something big coming. Something he had to plan for if he was to keep his home, his family, and his city safe. But he was only fifteen years old, and unable to last beneath the dual force of his father and his hogosha. With a quiet laugh, he slung an arm around April's shoulder. "Okay, okay," he said, favouring Splinter with a grin. "You win."

They would have to face this thing on the horizon eventually. But when they did, it would be together. He would make sure of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brain Trust will conclude in early 2015 with Brain Trust: Horizon!


End file.
